be supporting most of the weight or--or I wouldn't be here at all."

"Val," she repeated, and then, paying no heed to his frantic injunctions
to keep away, she dug at earth and rotten wood with her hands. Using the
long bundle clumsily wrapped in stained canvas, she levered a piece of
beam out of the way so that she might get down on her knees and scoop up
the sand and clay.

"Ricky! Val!" The light swung ahead as someone scrambled through the
hole in the barrier wall. Then, when the ray held firm upon them, the
headlong rush was checked for a long instant. "Val!"

"Get her--away," he begged. "Another--slip--"

But before he had done, a long arm gathered Ricky up as if she had been
a child. "Right," came the firm answer. "Sam, take Miss 'Chanda back.
Then--"

Val was watching the reflection of the flash on the broken roof above
him. Sand slid in tiny streams down the wall, mingling with the greenish
trickles of water. There were queer blue and green arcs painted on the
brick which had something to do with the hot pain behind his eyes. The
blue turned to orange--to scarlet--

"Careful! Right here in the hall, Holmes--"

The broken earth above him had somehow been changed to a high ceiling,
the chill darkness to blazing light and warmth.

"Ricky?" he asked.

"Here, Val." Her face was very close to his.

"You--are--all--right?"

"'Course!" But she was crying. "Don't try to talk, Val. You must be
quiet."

He heard someone moving toward them but he kept his eyes on Ricky's
face. "We did it!"

"Yes," she answered slowly, "we did it."

"Val, don't try to talk." Rupert's face showed above Ricky's hunched
shoulder. There was an odd, strained look about his mouth, a smear of
mud across his cheek. But the harsh tone of his voice struck his brother
as dumb as if he had slapped him.

"Sorry," Val shaped the words stiffly, "all my fault."

"Nothing's your fault," Ricky's indignant answer cut in. "But--but just
be quiet, Val, until the doctor comes."

He turned his head slowly. On the hearth-stone stood Charity talking
quietly to Holmes. Just within the circle of the firelight lay a bundle
which he had seen before. But of course, that was the thing they had
found in the passage, which Ricky had used to pound out their answer to
Rupert.

"Ricky--" Val always believed that it was some instinct out of the past
which forced that whisper out of him--"Ricky, open that package."

"Why--" she began, but then she got