Wentworth ranged swiftly through the rooms of the floor, and found it deserted. Most of the people here had made their escape by the stairs, or already had fled before him up the steps. Ram Singh stood braced outside a window, and his great right fist was lifted like a mallet.
"You walk slow," he shouted, "or by Kali, I will smash heads!"
Wentworth stared out the window. The fire escape was jammed with human beings, creeping, fighting their way downward, and Wentworth felt the blood drain from his heart at the sudden memory of the weakness of that fire escape, and how it had rattled and swayed beneath his single weight!
"Come, Ram Singh!" he shouted. "For God's sake, hurry!"
He whirled and darted out into the hallway. The heat struck him like a solid wall, and he bent his head, muffled his face in his cape and plunged on. A tongue of flame lashed across his ankles like the bite of a scourge. He made the steps. There was no one on it now; no one at all. He plunged upward and felt the creaking of the stair beneath his feet, felt the blistering intensity of the heat that roared up this open stairway.
"Up another floor!" Wentworth shouted. "Make the people go on that fire escape slowly, not more than twelve at a time! It's weak. May break!"
He darted toward the fire escape, and Ram Singh's huge hand clamped on his shoulder. "You go upstairs, master," he said simply. "I stay here!"
Wentworth whirled, and his grey-blue eyes flashed with pale fire. "Obey!" he bit out.
Ram Singh stepped back under the fury of those eyes, and touched his hands to his forehead in low salaam. Without another word, he whirled and sped toward the steps. Wentworth plunged on toward the room which held the fire escape exit.
No light burned within the room, but none was necessary. All outdoors seemed one scarlet tower of light. The flame glow blazed in through the window as from the mouth of a furnace. At the window, a dozen men and women fought and brawled like animals to escape. A man struck about him fiercely with his fists. The woman with the baby in her arms pitched to the floor, a girl screamed as she was hurled half across the room. Immediately she was on her feet again, and dashing back into the melee! The man won a moment's freedom there at the window, got half-way out. Another man seized him by the shoulders and hurled him back . . . and no one climbed out at all!
Wentworth whipped out an automatic and fired a shot into the ceiling. "Stop fighting," he ordered coldly. "The first person who strikes another dies!"
He strode toward the window, and suddenly here was a thing among them that they feared more than the scarlet caress of the flames. Here was a terror with a gun in his fist. One man lifted himself slowly from the floor, and suddenly flung headlong at Wentworth!
Wentworth stepped easily aside, and the gun lifted and fell . . . and the man was sprawling on the floor, unconscious.
"Now then," Wentworth's voice was quiet, even calm. "Women and children first!"
He picked up the woman with the baby, and her eyes lifted to his face . . . and this time she did not cringe. A hesitant smile moved on her lips and Wentworth helped her toward the window . . . but he did not turn his back on the others. He swung the children to the fire escape platform after their mother. Above him, he could hear the harsh rasp of Ram Singh's voice . . . and there were not many on the fire escape.
"Move swiftly, but without running," Wentworth called to the people on the fire escape. "This thing is weak!"
The little boy was grinning at Wentworth, "Good-by, funny man," he said, and toddled down the shaking metal steps.
One by one, gun bitterly ready in his fist, Wentworth issued the people to the fire escape. His eyes quested beyond the immediate group. Against the wall, he saw the old woman with her white, white hair. Beside her, a small, withered mouse of a man stood quietly.
"Come, mother!" Wentworth called.
The woman's withered lips smiled, "Let the young ones go first," she said. "They have so much to live for . . . .
The little man beside her took the old woman's arm and urged her forward.
"Take care of her," Wentworth told him gently.
The man's eyes were large behind his glasses. "If you don't mind," he said, his voice thin and reedy, "I think I'll wait a while. I never could stand heights."
Wentworth stared at him, but there was no time for argument. He swung the woman from the floor, set her gently on the platform. In the red light below, he could see firemen darting into the court.
"There will be help below," he told her.
The woman's withered hand clung to his for an instant. "Bless you, Spider," she quavered.
Wentworth swung then on the huddled men, crouching to one side of the window under the threat of his guns. They were racked by coughing from the fumes that seeped through the closed door, and there was hatred in their eyes.
"One at a time," Wentworth told them grimly. "I'll be at the window above you. The first man who hurries, or tries to rush the others . . . I'll shoot! All right, easy now!"
They went out of the window on their hands and knees, and they did not hurry, or fight. Wentworth saw their faces turned up, rosy in the firelight . . . and then it happened!
With a rending sound of tearing metal, a bolt ripped out of the bricks, and one end of the platform swung clear of the wall. There were shrieks and wild shouts below. Men started to run down the slanting ladders and up above Ram Singh's voice lifted in a hoarse shout!
Wentworth flung a single shot downward, and shouted a warning. He clamped an arm inside the wall then, and locked the other about the rail of the swaying platform. By an exertion of his utmost strength, he tugged it back against the building!
"Ram Singh!" he shouted, and his voice was hoarse with strain. "Ram Singh . . . hold up the fire escape!"
There were sudden groaning sounds of wrenched iron, and another bolt gave way. Wentworth's back bowed with effort. His head sagged downward, and his teeth set in his lip. The iron seemed to be severing his arm, his muscles were strained to breaking. Vision swam before his eyes. He was aware of shouts beneath him. The people below realized their danger, and were rushing pell-mell down the metal steps. Those still above them . . . and there was another floor above Ram Singh . . . saw their last means of escape eluding them and stormed the windows in a mass. They crowded the platforms to over-flowing. They fought to get down the stairways.
And the arms of two men alone anchored that mass of steel, those struggling people to the wall! Wentworth could feel fresh weight sagging upon him. He heard the ripping tear of his coat across his shoulders as the bulge of his muscles swelled against it. Thinly, he heard a man's voice beside, him, a squeaky, thin voice that repeated one sound over and over again. It was desperate, that voice, and Wentworth remembered the mouse-like little man who would not leave.
"Web!" he cried. "Your web! Where is it?"
From great depths, Wentworth heard and recognized the words and could not seem to answer. It was a violent effort of will even to remember where he had tucked the powerful line of silk that was his web. Somehow, he forced out words, dragged from the bottom of his mind. So great was the strain upon him that he could not even be sure that the man's hands touched his body, but presently the man was shouting at him again.
"Not good at knots!" he cried. "Think it will hold!"
Wentworth lifted up his head as a man will drag a great rock from the earth, and turned it toward the fire escape. The silken web had been twisted between a steam pipe inside, and the metal frame-work of the fire escape. It was doubled and redoubled a dozen times . . . and as the little man said, the knots were peculiar, but it looked as if it would hold!
Wentworth lifted his head heavily and gazed up at Ram Singh. There were only a few people left on the fire escape, and they were running down the steps toward him. They went past with frightened glances at the man in black. If they noticed that the cords stood out like ropes in his neck, that his face was fiery with congested blood and effort, they said nothing.
Woodenly, Wentworth's eyes followed
them downward as they fled, saw firemen snatch them from the last rungs and rush them clear of the wavering metal deadfall. Wentworth lifted his eyes to Ram Singh and the Sikh's eyes were bulging in his head with effort.
His voice reached down to Wentworth feebly. "Go down, master," he called, "and then I . . . ."
"Let go!" Wentworth called. "Let go!"
His sharp command penetrated even the lethargy of utter fatigue that gripped Ram Singh, and he saw the mighty arm of the Sikh loosen its hold. He let go in the same instant. The metal frame-work swayed out from the wall. A final bolt snapped up near the roof . . . and then with a rush, the whole fire escape plunged down into the courtyard! The uppermost platform struck first, bounced high, and then it was all over. A heap of twisted scrap-iron lay in the courtyard.
Somehow, Wentworth dragged himself back inside the window. His web still dangled there, looped about the steam pipe. The rusted iron of the fire escape had given way first. Slowly, Wentworth unwound the web. He was realizing that it might make the difference between life and death for them now. He pushed out from the wall, and the little man smiled at him hesitantly.
"I hope I tied it all right, Spider," he said.
Wentworth felt laughter prod at his chest. He dropped an arm, a weary, strained arm, about the man's shoulders. "No giant could have done better," he said.
The little man flushed and hung his head, and Wentworth strode with him toward the door. He pressed a palm against the door, flinched at the heat of it; stepped back.
"No man could live out there now," he said. "Even to open that door would mean we would be instantly suffocated by superheat."
With long strides, he returned to the window. Ram Singh was leaning out.
"There are still fools upon the roof, master!" Ram Singh called, "and the ladders cannot reach them because of the flames!"
Wentworth felt a dizziness that was exhaustion sweep through him, but he shook his head vehemently and reached out with the coiled web.
"Catch!" he called, and flung the line upward.
Ram Singh's hand wrapped about the silken line and Wentworth turned to the small man beside him.
"You're going out, now!" he said quietly. "There's no more you can do here!"
The man shook his head stubbornly, eyes big behind the glasses. "I'm not a leader," he said. "Very few of us are born to that . . . but I can follow! You may need me on the roof!"
Wentworth clicked back an impatient exclamation, looped the rope beneath the man's arms. "This time," he said grimly, "you lead! Haul away!"
The man hung passively in the loop while Ram Singh threw his great muscles into the task. Wentworth twisted away from the window. They had lost the prisoner that Ram Singh had taken, but this was the fourth floor where Duncan's men had tried to trap him. That door in the side wall . . . . Wentworth leaped to it, and slapped his palm against the wood. It was hot, but not like that one which opened into the hallway. He wrenched it open, and black smoke fanned into his face!
Wentworth strangled, threw the cape over his head, and plunged into the heat. Even through the thickness of his cape, he could sense the red leap of flames. Suddenly, he tripped and fell. His hands plunged against the body of a man! Cautiously, Wentworth uncovered his face, and recognized one of the killers! With a quick surge of strength, Wentworth caught up the body and hurried back to the room he had quitted. Ram Singh's shout was anxious, and Wentworth leaned out the window to reassure him, caught the silken line as it snaked down again. Rapidly, he secured it about the man's body, then he went up the silken line, feet braced against the wall, hauling in hand-over-hand! The instant his feet struck the floor inside the window upstairs, he whirled toward Ram Singh.
"Dead man on the other end of the line," he snapped. "Bring him to the roof! Where's that little man?"
Ram Singh's lips moved in a grin. "On the roof," he grunted. "He talks too much."
Wentworth grinned back slowly in Ram Singh's eyes, recognizing the admiration of the Sikh. Then Wentworth loped across the room. The air was a little clearer here, but it would not last long. The wood of the floors was beginning to smolder . . . . He sprang for the stairs, and raced to the roof, heard Ram Singh's heavy tread behind him. On the far corner of the roof were six women, huddled together, and over them stood the little man, looking out very quietly into the night. There was another building over that way, a good fifty feet away. There was nothing else.
Wentworth ran toward him, ducking under the mess of radio aerials that criss-crossed erratically; heard Ram Singh hurl the body to the roof and pound after him. In a swift instant, Wentworth leaned over the balustrade and surveyed the scene below. The flames billowed out from the windows, and even at this height, the heat was unbearable. No, no ladders could reach them here. He made a swift circuit of the roof. On one side, there was a two story building, and there were few windows on the wall. As yet, the fire had not broken through.
Instantly, Wentworth's plan was formed. He sprang atop the balustrade, and his cape billowed out in the rising heat from the flames. He cupped his hands to his mouth and sent a clear shout ringing toward the streets below. Even above the roar of the flames, the answer came back. It was a sigh, a groan of a hundred, a thousand voices.
"The Spider! The Spider?'
Wentworth lifted his hands for silence, and once more called out: "Roof to the left! Spread nets!"
There were long moments of uncertainty while Wentworth repeated that call and then he saw firemen stream out onto the roof! But already, it threatened to be too late! A section of the brick wall had fallen, and the flames licked out furiously! The firemen could not come close enough for the people to jump. Wentworth saw men in the white asbestos suits of the smoke-eaters run in their heavy burdened way toward the building, but knew they would come too late.
He cupped his hands. "Here they come!" he shouted. "Ram Singh . . . . Throw them!"
The women screamed, began to run like frightened fowls about the roof. It was the little man who stepped forward then. His face was white as the face of the high-sailing moon, and there was a quaver in his voice.
"I'm a fool about heights!" he said, and swallowed hard. "B-but you can throw me!"
The women stared then, and one of them came forward. "If he makes the net," she said, "you can throw me!"
Another woman darted forward. "No, no, throw me first! They can't hold the nets this near very long!"
Wentworth smiled thinly at the little man, "So you can't lead?" he asked softly.
He nodded to Ram Singh, and the giant Sikh caught the woman at the hips and whirled her high over his head. He ran toward the balustrade, and . . . hurled her into space! Her scream soared up into the heavens, and the white faces of the other women lined the balustrade. But Ram Singh's cast was true, and the woman smacked into the net and was taken out safely.
Swiftly then, Ram Singh and Wentworth hurled the others. The last one they both had to swing between them, like an adagio dancer by hands and feet, before she could be hurled into a high arch toward the net. She just made the edge of it, and afterward, the firemen shrank back. The flames were boiling out.
Wentworth whirled toward Ram Singh and together they gazed out over the fiery abyss. A reedy voice spoke into their silence. "It's too far to throw me," he said. "Too bad!"
Wentworth turned quickly, and he had the silken web in his hand. "With this, we can make it," he said quietly, and knotted the web beneath the man's arms. He lifted them submissively, but his eyes were very wide. He took off his glasses and his hands were trembling.
"I don't like to go first," he said. "Suppose the web catches fire when you lower me through the flames?"
Wentworth put his hands on the man's shoulders, looked him directly in the eye. "We're going to swing you clear of the flames," he said. "If we never meet again, I want you to know this: I've never met a braver man!"
The little man flushed and dropped his eyes. "Why—why, Spider . . . ." he began.
He had not chan
ce for more. Ram Singh caught him up in his arms and ran toward the end of the roof. Swiftly, they lowered him and then Ram Singh and Wentworth together began to swing him. He hung limply in the bight of the rope, a little man afraid of heights, a little man who knew he would never be a leader. At first, he moved so very little, then his body began to sweep through a slow arc, faster, faster . . . . Back and forth across the rear of the building they swung him, until his body was sailing out beyond the side wall, out toward the net that was spread on the adjacent roof.
"Now!" Wentworth gasped.
As the man's body swung again to the farthest limits of the web, they let it rush out between their hands. Wentworth had the end twisted around his hand. They would need it to escape; they would have to have it . . . and then a coldness shot through him! He realized that the web was not long enough! It would not reach the net! Instead, the little man would be snapped up short, swung back into the flames . . . .
At the last possible moment, Wentworth whipped his hand free of the silk, and it left his hand like the snapped line of a kite. The little man sailed through the air, folded neatly to land in the center of the net. The silken web whipped after him, settled its soft skein about him. On the roof, Ram Singh turned slowly toward Wentworth and there was a grin on his face.
He started to speak, and there was a crashing roar behind them, a volley of upward flying sparks. The top floor had fallen, and the roof was already curling the soles of their shoes!
"Wah, master," cried Ram Singh, "we are trapped like dead Parsecs atop a Tower of Silence. But no vultures will ever pick our bones!"
Wentworth's eyes were questing about. If he had the web, there was that roof fifty feet away. But he did not have the web . . . .
"There are vultures below, Ram Singh," he said quietly. "They wear blue coats . . . ."
Ram Singh spat into the flames. "Wah, there are no more than two score of them, and we are mighty warriors, thou and I!"
He heaved a deep sigh, and coughed violently with the heat. "I should have liked another battle or two!"
THE SPIDER-City of Doom Page 22