“Be careful!”
“Hold the candle.”
“Don’t go down!”
“I wanna see how deep it is.”
“Marty!”
“I’m all right.” He was testing the depth with his stick. “Gee whiz! Look!” He held up the lath but it was too dark for Gloria to see the water mark.
She was crouched upon the top step of the stairs, peering over the candle flame, confronted now with the enemy of so many ambitions: Water!
“Please, Marty!” she begged. “Don’t wade in. It might have a suck hole!”
But Marty was fascinated. He loved water, even in the cellar of a model bungalow. His shoes and stockings dangled from the step—not the last step of the stairs, and his accommodating trousers, without knee button or other security, had been rolled high as a fisherman’s.
“’Tain’t a bit cold,” he gurgled. “I wanna see if it’s pourin’ in anywheres.”
Gloria and Marty started to inspect the cellar.
Gloria shivered. It was dark, drafty and fearful there. She too was anxious to know why a cellar full of water could work such sinister disaster, but she didn’t like to stay there, with that reckless little boy, when night was threatening.
“I see it!” he called. “Here’s the spring—or somethin’!” Again the stick was thrust down.
He tried to withdraw it, then—
A scream from Gloria!
“Marty!”
He was down! In that black pool! In that muddy water!
Only pausing to see the candle in a safe place she stepped down and into the water.
“Put your head up, Marty,” she shrieked.
“Ye’ah,” came the welcome answer. “It’s me leg. It’s broke, I guess.”
She reached him, somehow. “Get hold of me, quick! I’m afraid I’ll fall. Oh! See! That water spout!”
Marty was clinging to her but he couldn’t look. The pain in his ankle blinded him more than the muddy water had. He gasped and breathed hard, but he did not give in.
“Oh, you poor boy! Can’t you put your foot under you at all?” Gloria was now thoroughly frightened.
“It hurts!” admitted the boy, taking the injured leg in one hand while he clung to Gloria with the other.
She was shivering. Not cold! That water! It was icy!
“Put your arms around my neck,” she commanded. “I can get you out.”
“I’m heavy—”
“No matter. Hurry! I’m freezing!”
Never was a stream forded more perilously. If she slipped they would both be down, and there was that gurgling, swirling little pool, over where a furnace ought to have been.
“Hold tight,” she cautioned. “Just a few more steps!”
Out of the water, and on to the narrow landing at the foot of the stairs at last. She turned to let Marty slide down from her shoulders.
“Oh!” she gasped. “Wasn’t it awful! But your foot. Where does it hurt?”
“Here.” He touched the injured ankle. “I went in a hole! Gosh! the whole bottom must be out of the cellar. It’s like a river!”
“Maybe it is—a lost river. But wait till I get the candle and see your ankle.”
A slam! A door slam! They both started. “Gee whiz! The door’s slammed shut!” exclaimed Marty, dismay echoing in that water filled basin.
“Can’t we open it?”
“It’s a spring! From the other side.”
“Marty! We’re not locked in this hole!”
“Yep, I’m afraid so!”
“Oh, Marty!” She was up at the door, candle in hand. She pushed! She pounded! It was locked, tight, with the catch on the other side!
“Oh-h-h!” Terror and panic seized her. What an awful thing had happened!
And no one even knew where they were!
Poor Marty, with a sprained ankle! She must not frighten him into a panic. She turned back and crept down the skeleton stairs.
“Can’t I get to a window?” she asked breathlessly.
“That one, over the big hole, is the only one with glass in,” Marty managed to answer. “The others is all barred up.”
“It’s right over the whirlpool!” she faltered.
“And it’s deep—”
“You bet it is! I didn’t want to tell you, but I thought sure I was in China.”
Holding the candle high above her head Gloria glared at the forbidding hole they were trapped in.
It was terrible, awful! They were trapped, locked in a cellar with that awful ill smelling water all about them.
“Marty!” she gasped, sinking down beside him on the little landing. “Marty, what shall we do?”
“Pray,” answered Marty. “Maybe some ’un ’ill come!”
That was the boy’s way. To ask and to hope! She had only seen despair. But now she remembered. Trixy and Ben were to ride out to Aunt Hattie’s for her, and she, Trixy, knew they were coming to Echoes!
“If only I could get to that window,” she panted. “Maybe Trixy will come!”
“Sure! Listen! There’s a car!”
The unmistakable honk-honk of a friendly car sounded like Gabriel’s trumpet—if paradise had been promised to all.
“Yes,” exclaimed Gloria, holding to Marty’s wet coat to keep from falling over the narrow platform. “That’s Trixy and Ben!”
“Ben?”
“Yes. A friend from—my home town. Oh, if I can only make them hear!”
Gathering a long full breath she called:
“Trixy! Tri-x-y—Trix!!!”
She pealed out the syllables with every bit of power she could command. But the horn honked uninterruptedly.
Then Marty tried it. He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled! “Trix-ee! Hey, there! Trix-ee Trav-verse! Whoo-hool!” His voice echoed with an uncanny resonance, but the horn of the car outside never listened.
Gloria dropped her arm from his shoulder. “They can’t hear us,” she murmured.
“No. The drive is blocked with big planks across, and they have to stop way down by the cedars.”
“Oh, Marty,” wailed Gloria. “They’re going! Listen!”
The car was chugging. Surely they were turning back.
Terror seized Gloria Doane! Would they have to die there!
“Give me the candle,” she shrieked.
“What y’u gonna do?”
“Get to that window!”
“You can’t!”
“I must. I’ll climb the beams!”
“You might fall in!”
“I won’t. Oh, Marty! There, put the candle right in the middle of that board.”
Then she swung to the rough beams. The splinters cut into her hands but she swung from one post to another, clinging without seeming to breathe.
“Glory! Care-ful!” begged the boy in a pained whisper, fearful that even a word would shock her hands from their perilous hold.
“There,” he said again. “Rest there! Get your breath.”
How spacious the little cellar seemed! And how black the water beneath! She could hear it bubble and swirl, coming in and forcing out.
If only she could reach that next post! But how her hands hurt! She could feel the blood wet in her palms. And her body was like lead, dragging on the lacerations.
“Hold it!” cautioned Marty. “Now swing!”
Somehow she did it. She was on the other side of the cellar within a few feet of the rescuing windows.
“Easy! Don’t slip!”
“Oh, I won’t now,” she declared, her hands free once more as she crouched in a nest of posts with cross pieces forming uprights. “I hear the car! I must smash that window!”
As far about her as she could reach she tried for loose timber. But it was all securely nailed. Again the terror of failure. Then:
“Oh, I see it! A piece of pipe!”
She had crawled to the window but dared not break it with her bare hands. Now she had the bit of iron, and protecting her face from the impact—she thrust the bar through the glass.
Smash!
“Trixy!” she shrieked. Then she held frantically to the window edge and braced her feet against the beams.
She felt her head brush something!
Everything had gone black!