“Oh! what is it?” called Sue, in a shaking voice from above. “Is the creature eating you up?”
“Oh, no!” moaned Rose. “It is my foot, my foot! It hurts me. I can’t stand up on it. Oh! oh!” Rose was a brave little girl and she never cried unless she was badly hurt. But now the pain was terrible.
“Oh, if there isn’t any awful creature there, I will come down and help you,” said Sue. Presently she, too, came slipping into the bottom of the hole. But she fell without hurting herself. There was plenty of room for her beside Rose. She found that they were in a little cave. But it was not a nice one like the pirate cave. It was damp and wet and slimy, very cold, with the disagreeable smell of decaying seaweed.
Sue looked around fearfully and shivered. “It is a horrid place,” she said. “I am afraid to stay here. Let’s go out quickly.”
She helped Rose to her feet; but when she tried to step poor Rose screamed with pain and fell back in a heap.
“I can’t walk,” she wailed. “My foot is broken, I think. See, it is all swelled up!”
Sure enough. The poor foot was turning the most dreadful color, a mixed purple and green, and it was twice as big as it ought to be. Rose had twisted her ankle badly.
“Oh, what shall we do?” said Sue. “How will you ever get out?”
Just then “chug!” came that same queer sound. This time both Rose and Sue screamed and looked with wide eyes down into the farther corner of the cave, which was narrow and dark. They expected to see some creature come creeping out; but nothing appeared.
“What do you suppose it is?” whispered Sue.