He felt one of his companions at his side. He looked up and saw the muscular black man again moving the bale. Assouan sat with his legs dangling through the opening. The trapdoor was leaning against his shoulder. He reached over, grasped the bale and pulled it against the door. Then, swiftly, yet with deliberation, he slid down through the trap, permitting the door to close, with the tipped bale settling over it. In the darkness, beneath, the four fugitives crouched on the bare ground, hearing above their heads the feet of their pursuers. After a time the tread of feet and murmur of voices ceased. Evidently their pursuers had departed baffled. Then Assouan whispered directions to them, and, one after the other, the black man leading, they crawled many feet along what seemed to be a trenchlike passage beneath the building. Finally Assouan paused. He rose, and they saw a gleam of light that came faintly through another square opening. This dim light revealed their conductor opening another trapdoor by lifting it. He stood erect, and then sprang lightly up through the opening. “Oh, Richard!” whispered Professor Gunn; “this is a terrible experience! If we escape with our lives, I shall always think of this day with unspeakable horror.” Assouan was stooping over the opening, with his hands outstretched. He directed them to rise and permit him to assist them. Dick urged the professor onward. The black man grasped the hands of the old pedagogue and lifted him through the trap. Buckhart needed no assistance, nor did Dick, who swiftly followed him. Assouan closed the trapdoor behind him. “Wherever are we?” inquired the Texan. The black man explained that they were in a building that stood on the opposite side of a narrow street at the back of the German hotel. They had actually crept through a passage that led beneath this street. This passage had been made years before, by the former owner of the hotel, who feared a repetition of the massacre of 1860, and wished a means of escaping from the building in case it should be assailed by a mob. It was doubtful if the present proprietor knew of the existence of the passage. The old sheik, Ras al Had, had chanced by accident to discover the passage while storing goods in the building into which it led from the hotel. At the present time this building was used as a storehouse. The room in which they found themselves was poorly lighted. They were again amid boxes and bales of goods. Outside, between them and the hotel, they heard the sound of many voices. The mob was there, but the soldiers were still holding the crowd in check. “My goodness!” murmured Professor Gunn. “It seems to me that we’re still in a nasty scrape. We haven’t escaped.” Without a word, the black man led the way to another part of the building. A heavy door faced them in one dim corner. This door Assouan knew how to open, but he paused and listened some moments before unfastening it.