imagination pictured the ghastly fate made
possible by imprisonment in this black hole.

"There's no use getting excited," he said. "We get some air through the
cracks and after dark she'll be here, like she said. It's beginning to
get dark now, I guess."

But he could not sit quietly and wait through the awful suspense, and he
pressed up against the boards at intervals all the way along the four
sides of the door. On the side where the hinges were it yielded not at
all. On the opposite side it held fast in the center, showing that by a
perverse freak of chance it had locked itself. Elsewhere it strained a
little on pressure, but not enough to afford any hope of breaking it.

"If it was only lowerr," Archer said, "so we could brace our shoulderrs
against it, we might forrce it."

"And make a lot of noise," said Tom. "There's no use getting rattled;
we'll just have to wait till she comes."

"Yes, but it gives you the willies thinkin' about what would happen----"

"Well, don't let's think of it, then," Tom interrupted. "We should
worry." And suiting his action to the word, he seated himself, drew up
his knees, and clasped his hands over them. "We'll just have to wait,
that's all."

"What do you suppose that sound was?" Archer asked.

"I don't know; some kind of a gun. It ain't the first gun that's been
shot off in Europe lately."

For half an hour or so they sat, trying to make talk, and each pretended
to himself and to the other that he was not worrying. But Tom, who had a
scout's ear, started and his heart beat faster at every trifling stir
outside. Then, as they realized that darkness must have fallen, they
became more alert for sounds and a little apprehensive. They knew
Florette would come quietly, but Tom believed he could detect her
approach.

After a while, they abandoned all their pretence of nonchalant
confidence and did not talk at all. Of course, they knew Florette would
come in her own good time, but the stifling atmosphere of that musty
hole and the thought of what _might_ happen----

Suddenly there was a slight noise outside and then, to their great
relief, the unmistakable sound of footfalls on the planks above them,
softened by the thick carpet of matted vine.

"Sh-h, don't speak!" Tom whispered, his heart beating rapidly. "Wait
till she unfastens it or says something."

For a few seconds--a minute--they waited in breathless suspense. Then
came a slight rustle as from some disturbance of t