“Get Ned!” he gasped. “He’s down around my knees, somewhere!”
The professor’s face was white and he silently kneeled beside Don’s head and dug with all his strength. Terry and Jim held the slippery sand back as the two men shovelled it away, and in a few seconds, which seemed like hours to them, one of Ned’s shoulders was uncovered. Dropping their shovels the men wormed their hands beneath his armpit and tore him loose from the sand.
“Here, water, senor,” said Yappi, appearing beside them with a canteen.
Ned was blue and unconscious, and they were forced to dig the sand from his nose and mouth before he could catch his breath. When he had become conscious he drank some water, and Don followed his example. They both were free to breathe but were still buried and sinking, for the sand was sifting down into the room below.
“This fight has only just begun,” said the captain, grimly. “We’ve got to get them out of here as fast as we can.”
Then began a spirited battle between the men and the sand, the human beings putting every ounce of strength into the battle to keep their companions from being engulfed again and the sand exerting its power to entomb them once more, with a persistence that was perfectly amazing. The muscles of the friends ached, for they were tired from the events of the day, but they knew it was a race of life and death. They dug ceaselessly, throwing sand as far away as possible, baffled and maddened by the steady stream of the soil that returned to the charge.
It grew steadily darker and at last the captain, who had assumed charge of the rescue operations spoke briefly to the professor. “Tell your man to light a big fire,” he commanded.
When this was done they labored on, and after an hour had gone by they were down as far as the boys’ waists. They were working in a hollow that had been made even more of a hole than normally by the collapse of the deck, and so the sand proved to be a persistent foe. As fast as they threw it up it slid back, and there was no way to keep it up.
“Now,” said the captain, briskly. “Tell your man to back the horses down here, throw out a hawser, grapple onto those lads, and tow ’em out!”
When this had been put into the kind of language that Yappi could understand he quickly ran the horses into position, threw out a rope, and it was passed under Don’s armpits. Yappi sprang into the saddle gave the horse the pressure of his heels, his hand steady to check him at moment’s notice.