Val was blinking stupidly at the light, but Ricky had presence of mind enough to answer.
"Here we are!"
"Look out," Val roused enough to warn, "the walls are unsafe!"
"We're coming through," rang the answer out of the dark. "Stand away!"
Now that they could see, Val realized for the first time the danger of their position. A jagged, water-rotted beam half covered with clay and sand lay across him, and beyond that was a mass of splintered wood and wet earth. A little sick, he looked up at Ricky. She was staring at the wreckage. Her eyes were black in a white, mud-smeared face.
"Val—Val!" His name came as the thinnest of whispers.
"It isn't as bad as it looks," he said hurriedly. "Something underneath must 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—"