She had it open in a second, and forced the bolt a minute later. Kneeling in the doorway, she undid her braid sash, meaning to fling it out to Noreen and Gabrielle. "Get hold; we're all right now." And as she spoke she heard again that muffled call for help from somewhere underneath. Then, of course, she remembered her first visit, and the jumpy young man who had come up through the trap-door. The floor of the Round Tower was hardly under water yet; but what was it like underneath? That last call had been the choked effort of someone who couldn't breathe. Joey stood irresolute for one second--but only one. The jumpy young man was probably a German, since he and the Professor had been signalling to one another; but when you were English you couldn't leave even a Hun to die when he had called for help. Father had risked his life to bring in a wounded German who was lying in agony in a shell-swept reach of No-Man's Land. She would not even have hesitated for that second, if it had not been for the thought of Gabrielle and Noreen holding on precariously, with the deepening water washing round them, waiting for her help. In her heart she knew that her friends would not want her to hesitate. She darted across the floor to the corner where the trap-door was, and then she saw what had happened. The owner of the tower had been right in considering it rather shaky, and none too safe. A great stone had come down, and lay upon the trap-door, making it quite impossible to push up from below. Joey flung herself upon the great stone. "All right--I'll get it open," she shouted; but there was no answer. That faint choked call was not repeated. She pushed at the stone with all her strength, but it did not budge. She pushed again, with a terrible nightmare feeling that Gabrielle, her friend, could not keep her footing in the water, and was drowning while she wasted time. She took a deep breath, and pushed, with cracking muscles, for the third time, and the stone rolled over with a loud splash, and the trap was free. "Can you push?" she shouted. When she had seen him before the young man had come up a ladder propped against the side, and pushed the trap up from below. But now there was no sound or answer. Joey thought of Gabrielle's story of the man who had been drowned in the room below the Round Tower in just such another flood, and hunted desperately for something she could catch at and pull the trap-door up. She found a ring at last, and tugged with all her might. The trap raised, and water sluiced down into the opening, water that was washing in through the open door. The water from above met the water from below with a great splash. There was no other sound. Joey peered down the wide trap. Two groping hands and a dead white face with staring eyes showing dimly through the darkness. Black water, of an unknown depth, washed to and fro.