With a flash of inspiration the Professor, with Mr. Jesson and Jack aiding, rove the rope through this pulley. Then, while Tom and Ned maneuvered the Flying Road Racer so that her “bow” pointed downward, all of the marooned adventurers who were able to do so heaved on the rope. In this way the air craft was brought to within three feet of the roof. Another length of rope was then looped over the side by Tom and made fast to two of the stanchions of the balloon support. The first to test the loop was the companion of the crazed sailor. Half dragged, he scrambled into the body of the suspended car. Professor Chadwick followed, and then came Mr. Jesson, while a delighted cry at his father’s safety came from Tom. Abner Jennings was the next to be taken on board, and then came Jack. In the meantime Captain Andrews had buckled his belt around the limbs of the crazed sailor and had borrowed Jack’s for the purpose of confining his prisoner’s arms. Trussed up in this manner the poor fellow was handed up to those on the Flying Road Racer, and then the gallant Captain Andrews made a spring for the swaying loop. He was in the nick of time. As he gained the tonneau and sank to the floor almost exhausted, there was a deafening roar, and, as if it had suddenly melted away, the entire building collapsed. Jack turned away shuddering as the flame and sparks shot up above the ruins. The ideas it suggested of the fate that might have been theirs if help had not arrived in the very nick of time, were almost overwhelming. Tom was at the helm, and Ned it was who had cast off the rope. Slowly, almost Phoenix-like, from amidst the flames rose the Flying Road Racer with her heavy burden. There was danger in the situation, too. The gas in the bag was inflammable, and the heat of the fire might expand it so that at any minute it might burst the container, and cause an appalling catastrophe. This danger Tom and Ned had willingly faced when they brought the Flying Road Racer to the rescue. But now, all their desires were centered on getting as far away from the fire zone as was possible. Laden as she was, the great air craft had not the same buoyancy that had been hers when she set out at midnight from the _Vagrant_. She rose slowly, and although her propeller was whirring at top speed, and her rising planes were set, she once or twice sagged dangerously. While this behavior on the air craft’s part was worrying her navigators seriously, there came a sudden fresh cause for disquiet. Bullets from the negroes below began to whiz about them. The fellows had luckily been too much astonished to fire while the task of rescue was going on. The apparition of the sky-ship had taken them so much by surprise that they had temporarily been unable to take any hostile action.