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Loge raised his hand and sped a last bullet at the detective, grazing Barnstable's temple. "Come in and get me!" he shouted. Barnstable fired, just as a whirl of smoke blew in front of Loge. Cleggett thought the outlaw staggered, but he was not certain. A moment later a portion of the roof fell; then the east wall crashed in. Morris's was a blazing ruin. "He has perished in the flames," said Wilton Barnstable. "So ends Logan Black!" "More like he's blowed his head off," said Cap'n Abernethy. "If you was to ask me, that's what I'd do." "He has done neither!" cried Cleggett. "He has taken to the tunnel. That man will fight to the last breath." And without waiting to see whether the others followed him or not Cleggett set off at top speed for the Jasper B. With a dagger between his teeth, his pistol in its holster, and his electric, watchman's lantern in his pocket he entered the tunnel and crawled forward on his hands and knees. If Loge were in there indeed he had the fire at one end and Cleggett at the other. But even at that, escape was possible, for all Cleggett knew. What ramifications this peculiar passageway might have he could not guess. The place was narrow, and in spots so low that it was necessary for a man to crouch almost to the ground. Cleggett, because he did not wish to reveal his presence, did not flash his lantern; there were stretches where he might have stood almost erect and made quicker progress, if he had found them with the light. The earth beneath him was beaten hard and smooth. Cleggett thought possibly that the tunnel had originally led from Morris's basement to the smuggler's cave which Wilton Barnstable had spoken of, and that it had been extended later to the ship. He learned afterwards that this was true from the men who had surrendered. The Jasper B. had been abandoned for so long, and was so completely abandoned except for the visits of Cap'n Abernethy, who fished from it now and then, that Loge had conceived the idea of making it the back-door, so to speak, of Morris's. In the event of a raid upon Morris's his "get-away" through the hulk was provided for. He had intended buying the ship himself; but Cleggett had forestalled him. From the prisoners Cleggett also learned later that two men had been concerned in the explosion which had broken the big rocks on the plain. One of them had won the Claiborne signet ring at poker after Reginald Maltravers ha
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