"The firemen are here! They'll save us!" cried Mary, as she heard the noises in the street below. "We can leap into the life nets."

"There isn't a life net made, nor men who could retain it, to hold up a person jumping from the tenth story," said her uncle. "Our only chance is to wait for them to subdue the fire."

"Isn't there a back way down, Uncle Barton?" "No, Mary!" He closed the window for, open as it was, the draft created served to suck smoke into the office, and Mary was coughing.

Uncle and niece faced each other. Trapped indeed they were, unless the fire, which was now raging all through the building, with the stairs and elevator shafts as a center, could be subdued. That the city fire department was doing its best was not to be doubted.

"We can only wait--and hope," said Mr. Keith solemnly.

Mary gave a gasp. Her uncle thought she was going to burst into tears, but she bravely conquered herself and faced him with what was meant to be a smile. But it is difficult to smile with quivering lips, and Mary soon gave up the attempt.

Mr. Keith went over to the water cooler--one of those inverted large gla.s.s bottles--and looked to see how much water it contained.

"It's nearly full," he said.

"What good will it do?" asked Mary. "This fire is beyond a little water like that."

"Yes, but it will serve to keep our handkerchiefs wet so we can breathe through them if the smoke gets too thick," was his reply.

"It begins to look as if we'd need to try that soon," said Mary, and she pointed to thick smoke curling in under the door.

"Yes," agreed her uncle. "It's getting worse." Hardly had he spoken when there came a rush of feet in the corridor outside his office door.

Then a voice exclaimed:

"We're trapped! We can't get down either the stairs or the elevators!"

"It can't be possible!" said another voice. "Something must be done!

Help! Help! Take us out of here!"

"Foolish cowards!" murmured Mr. Keith, and then the door of his office was violently opened and two men rushed in. They were strangers to Mary and her uncle.

"Isn't there any way out of this fire trap?" cried one of the men. "Are there any fire escapes at your windows?"

"None," said Mr. Keith.

"This is all your fault, Melling!" cried the smaller of the two men, whose voice, in loudness and depth of pitch, was out of all proportion to his size. "All your fault! I told you we should have those new fire escapes!"

"And you were the one, Field, who objected to the cost of fire escapes when you found what the charge would be," retorted the other. "You said we didn't need to waste that money, if the building was fire-proof."

"But it isn't, Melling! It isn't!" yelled the other.

"We're finding that out too late!" came the retort. "But I'm not going to die here like a rat in a trap!" And he raised the window and leaned out and yelled, "Help! Help! Help!"

"Don't do that," said Mr. Keith, coming over to close the cas.e.m.e.nt.

"They can't hear you down below, and opening the window will only fill this place with smoke. Are you Field and Melling?"

"Yes, of the Consolidated Dye Company," was the answer from the big man. "We are also part owners of this building, but I wish we weren't."

"It is a pretty poor specimen of a modern building," said Mr. Keith.

"You have offices here, haven't you?" he went on. "I remember to have seen your names on the directory."

"We're on the floor above," was the answer from Field. "We were in a rear room, going over some accounts, and we didn't know anything was wrong until we smelled smoke. We tried to get down, and managed to come, by way of the stairs, as far as this floor," he explained quickly.

"You can't go any farther," said Mr. Keith. "All there is to do is to wait for the firemen."

"Suppose they never come?" whined Melling. "Oh, they'll come!" a.s.serted Mary's uncle, but he spoke more to quiet her alarm than because he really believed it, for the Landmark Building was a seething furnace of flame centering in and about the elevator shafts and stairs.

Meanwhile Tom and his companions in the airship had seen the red glow in the evening sky, and in another minute the young inventor had turned his craft more directly toward it.

"It surely is in Newmarket," said Mr. Damon. "Right in the center of the city, too. There's one big building there--the Landmark."

"Looks as if that was afire," said Ned quickly. "Hasn't some relative of Mary's an office there, Tom?"

"Yes. Mr. Keith. And her other uncle, Jasper Blake, is also interested in the building. It's the Landmark all right!" cried Tom, as his craft rose higher and advanced nearer the blaze.

"What are you going to do?" yelled Mr. Damon, as he saw the young inventor head directly toward a spouting mushroom of flame, which showed that the fire had broken through the roof. "What are you going to do?"

"Go to the rescue!" answered Tom Swift. "I couldn't ask a better opportunity to try my new extinguisher! Sit tight, every one!"

CHAPTER XXIV

A STRANGE DISCOVERY

Once it became evident to the occupants of the airship what Tom Swift's plans were, they all prepared to help him. Previous to the trip certain duties had been a.s.signed to each one, duties which were to be exercised when Tom gave the exhibition of his new aerial fire-fighting apparatus at the set fire before the fire department of Denton.

This preparation now stood the young inventor in good stead, for there was no confusion aboard the Lucifer when she winged her way toward the burning Landmark Building, where the flames were continually spouting higher and higher as they rushed through the roof, directly above the stairway well and elevator shafts.

So far the flames had confined themselves to this central part of the big structure, but it was only a question of time when they would spread out on all sides, licking up the remainder of the pile. And, for the most part, the firemen on the ground were at a great disadvantage.

They had run in lines as near as they could get to the center of the blaze, and had also attached hose to the standpipes inside the building. But this last effort was wasted, as developed later, for there was no one in the building to direct the nozzle ends of the hose attached to the standpipes on the different floors. Also the fierce heat fairly melted the pipes themselves in the vicinity of the elevator shafts, and there was no automatic sprinkling system in the building.

This was the situation, then, when Tom in his airship loaded with fire-extinguishing chemicals headed for the blaze. And this, also, was the desperate situation that confronted Mary Nestor and her uncle, Barton Keith, as well as Amos Field and Jason Melling. Those unscrupulous and cowardly men were in a veritable panic of fear, which contrasted strangely with the calm, resigned att.i.tude of Mary and her uncle.

"We must get out! Some one must save us!" yelled Field.

"Jump from the window!" cried Melling.

"No, I can't permit that!" declared Mr. Keith, standing in their path.

"It would be sure death! As it is, there may be a chance."

"A chance? How?" asked Field. "Listen to that!"

Through the closed door of Mr. Keith's office could be heard the roar and crackle of flames, while the very air was now stifling and hot, filled with acrid smoke.

"We can only wait," said Mr. Keith, and he wet Mary's handkerchief in the water and handed it to her to bind over her face.