"Got a knife, either of you?" she jerked at them.
"I have," called Noreen.
Joey did not dare tell them to move from their precarious position. The water was washing hard against the tower; Gabrielle at least could be washed away from it quite easily if she loosened her grip.
"Chuck it here!" she shouted, and prayed that she might not muff the catch. Noreen fumbled and threw. Joey, leaning a little away from the door, with one hand clinging, caught the knife as it flew across the water, and held it—safe!
She had it open in a second, and forced the bolt a minute later. Kneeling in the doorway, she undid her braid sash, meaning to fling it out to Noreen and Gabrielle.
"Get hold; we're all right now."
And as she spoke she heard again that muffled call for help from somewhere underneath. Then, of course, she remembered her first visit, and the jumpy young man who had come up through the trap-door.
The floor of the Round Tower was hardly under water yet; but what was it like underneath? That last call had been the choked effort of someone who couldn't breathe.
Joey stood irresolute for one second—but only one. The jumpy young man was probably a German, since he and the Professor had been signalling to one another; but when you were English you couldn't leave even a Hun to die when he had called for help. Father had risked his life to bring in a wounded German who was lying in agony in a shell-swept reach of No-Man's Land. She would not even have hesitated for that second, if it had not been for the thought of Gabrielle and Noreen holding on precariously, with the deepening water washing round them, waiting for her help. In her heart she knew that her friends would not want her to hesitate.
She darted across the floor to the corner where the trap-door was, and then she saw what had happened. The owner of the tower had been right in considering it rather shaky, and none too safe. A great stone had come down, and lay upon the trap-door, making it quite impossible to push up from below.