Adrian was so startled that he dropped into a chair, the better to sustain himself against further Arabian-nights-like discoveries.
It was a flagstaff! Somebody was climbing it—Margot! Up, up, like a squirrel, her blond head appearing first on one side then the other, a glowing budget strapped to her back.
Adrian gasped. No sailor could have been more fleet or sure-footed. It seemed but a moment before that slender figure had scaled the topmost branch and was unrolling the brilliant burden it had borne. The stars and stripes, of course. Adrian would have been bitterly disappointed if it had been anything else this agile maiden hoisted from that dizzy height.
In wild excitement and admiration the watcher leaned out of his window and shouted hoarsely:
“Hurrah! H-u-r-rah! H-u-r——!”
The cheer died in his throat. Something had happened. Something too awful to contemplate. Adrian’s eyes closed that he might not see. Had her foot slipped? Had his own cry reached and startled her?
For she was falling—falling! and the end could be but one.