Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 176 by Maxwel l Grant

Author:Maxwel,l Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

CHAPTER XII

REVOKED DISASTER

THE explosion that blasted chunks of the cornice from the roof of the Albot Building was loud enough to be heard on the street, twelve floors below.

Hundreds of horrified citizens were watching the fierce blaze that racked the Central House, unable to take their eyes from the hideous scene, until they were attracted by the blast.

Then some looked up. The rest, still staring at the hotel windows, were hoping that the frantic guests could hold out a few minutes longer. Many were on the window ledges, ready to jump, so scared that they couldn't see whether or not nets were beneath them.

At any moment, there might have been a general plunge toward the sidewalk,

in which only a few could have landed in the one net that was actually in place.

But that horrible mass suicide was stayed by the eager shouts of persons on the

street, the ones who had gazed above the flaming hotel.

Something in the rising shout gave real hope to the clinging victims. As they waited, their windows showing flames in the smoky background, the shout from below became a roaring cheer uttered by a thousand throats.

Everyone was looking upward by that time. They couldn't see The Shadow or the flattened crooks. What they did view, was the effect that The Shadow's blast had produced - on a far greater scale than the overwhelming of a few puny

opponents.

The Shadow had planted his dynamite at the base of the outer leg that supported the water tank. The explosion had ripped the supporting steel.

Bright

flames, erupting from the hotel roof, showed the quivering of the mammoth tank.

A thing the size of a cottage was wabbling on its struts atop the Albot Building.

During long, breathless moments the tank wavered, until the shattered leg could not restrain it. The other supports remaining firm, the tank began to tip

toward the roof edge. Its conical cap broke away as water began spilling from its brim. That weight once started, nothing could halt it.

Tilting like a gigantic cauldron, the tank poured its deluge down upon

the

flaming furnace that had recently been a hotel. The roar of that liquid mass was

louder than a cataract. Thousands of gallons of water had been loosed in one tremendous flood, exactly as if some giant hand had overturned its brimming cup!

Flames hissed as the Niagara met them. Fire was encountering its unconquerable foe, water, in quantities that proved immense. That tank could have supplied six lines of hose for half an hour. Instead, thanks to The Shadow, it was gushing its entire contents in the space of a single minute.

Furthermore, the flood was pouring into the place where it was most effective, an area that no fire hose could have reached: the very center of the

huge conflagration!

Crooks had blasted a path up through the intervening floors, to give the fire a rapid avenue. The Shadow had launched the contents of the water tank down into that same channel. The very factor that had given power to the flames

was producing their defeat.

The

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