The footsteps continued; guttural voices sounded,--the voices of Germans. It was impossible to distinguish what they were saying; and it made no difference, in any case. The only point that mattered was that they were there; that they blocked the only means Frank had of getting away with the precious petrol he had so luckily found. He was safe enough personally. Even if they were led to come down into the cellar the chances were all in favor of his being able to conceal himself. What he feared was that some use was to be made of the place, and that the men whose voices he heard would stay there, thus preventing him from getting out of the building and so getting the petrol to Greene. It was more than possible, he thought, that the German commander, knowing that the presence of his troops in the woods had been discovered, would decide to use this place for headquarters. And what he could hear confirmed this idea. There was a continual tramping overhead. Men came and went. That seemed to indicate that the occupation was to be permanent. He racked his brains for some means of escape. Windows there were none in the cellar. He found no trace of a trap door, such as there would have been in almost any American cellar. And then the saving thought came to him like a flash. He debated for a moment, then decided that the risk was worth taking. First he took his can of gasoline to the steps. Then he poured a little into a broken bottle, and poured this, in turn, on the wood under which he had found the cans. He dragged the full can of petrol to the other side of the cellar. And then, very deliberately, he set a match to the gasoline soaked wood and retreated to the steps. The fire he had started blazed up at once, owing to the petrol. And at once a thick, acrid smoke filled the place. He was well up on the stairs, and thus safe from being choked. But he was in danger should the Germans come down, though even so, since the steps were wide, there was a chance for him. But he did not expect them to come down. He thought the smoke would drive them out, since as nearly as he could judge his fire was directly under the room in which the most of the commotion upstairs was taking place. It was not long before he heard coughing upstairs, the first sign that the smoke was doing its work. By that time a brisk fire was burning. It had run up the posts to the beams that formed the chief support of the room above, and to his delight Frank saw that these burned far more fiercely and quickly than he had hoped. Plainly the wood was old and dry. Above, as the fire spread, louder cries succeeded the coughing. And then came the crucial test by which his daring experiment had to stand or fall. Some one opened the door at the head of the stairs. Now, if ever, he was to be discovered! But as the door was opened the smoke was drawn up, and the German who had come to it jumped back.