"The restaurant stocks up in the afternoon, as most of its
business is in the morning and at noon. It only carries a day's
stock of foodstuffs, and the--the cataclysm, or whatever it was,
came at three o'clock. There is practically nothing in the place.
We couldn't make sandwiches for half the women that are caught
with us, let alone the men. Everybody will go hungry to-night.
There will be no breakfast to-morrow, nor anything to eat until we
either make arrangements with the Indians for some supplies or else
get food for ourselves."
Arthur leaned his jaw on his hand and considered. A slow flush
crept over his cheek. He was getting his fighting blood up.
At school, when he began to flush slowly his schoolmates had known
the symptom and avoided his wrath. Now he was growing angry with
mere circumstances, but it would be none the less unfortunate for
those circumstances.
"Well," he said at last deliberately, "we've got to-- What's that?"
There was a great creaking and groaning. Suddenly a sort of
vibration was felt under foot. The floor began to take on a slight
slant.
"Great Heaven!" some one cried. "The building's turning over and
we'll be buried in the ruins!"
The tilt of the floor became more pronounced. An empty chair slid
to one end of the room. There was a crash.
VI.
Arthur woke to find some one tugging at his shoulders, trying to drag
him from beneath the heavy table, which had wedged itself across
his feet and pinned him fast, while a flying chair had struck him
on the head and knocked him unconscious.
"Oh, come and help," Estelle's voice was calling
deliberately. "Somebody come and help! He's caught in here!"
She was sobbing in a combination of panic and some unknown emotion.
"Help me, please!" she gasped, then her voice broke despondently,
but she never ceased to tug ineffectually at Chamberlain, trying
to drag him out of the mass of wreckage.
Arthur moved a little, dazedly.
"Are you alive?" she called anxiously. "Are you alive? Hurry, oh,
hurry and wriggle out. The building's falling to pieces!"
"I'm all right," Arthur said weakly. "You get out before it all
comes down."
"I won't leave you," she declared "Where are you caught? Are you
badly hurt? Hurry, please hurry!"
Arthur stirred, but could not loosen his feet. He half-rolled over,
and the table moved as if it had been precariously balanced, and slid
heavily to one side. With Estelle still tugging at him, he managed
to get to his feet on the slanting floor and stared about him.
Arthur continued to stare about.
"No danger," he said weakly. "Just the floor of the one room gave
way. The aftermath of the rock-flaw."
He made his way across the splintered flooring and piled-up chairs.
"We're on top of the safe-deposit vault," he said. "That's why
we didn't fall all the way to the floor below. I wonder how we're
going to get down?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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