“It was dreadful!” she shuddered. “I dreamed that a big man like—like my father—had his hand over my face and was stifling me. What time is it?”
“It is another day. It was a little past eight o’clock when I struck a match about an hour ago. You have slept all night.”
“And you?” she inquired quickly.
“I couldn’t sleep very much—naturally. Besides, I didn’t wish to. I was afraid you might waken and call me, and I shouldn’t hear.”
“There is no news?”
“A little. Regnier reports that the digging has gone on steadily all night. He knows the Morse alphabet, and he contrived to get into communication with Plegg during the night by tapping on the crushed air-pipe; so they know on the outside that we are here and alive.”
She pressed her hands to her forehead. Though he could not see the movement, he knew she made it.
“Does your head ache?” he asked.
“Some. The air is much worse, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t any better,” he conceded. “Once, in the night, they tried shooting the slide from the other side—blasting it with dynamite, you know. That was what made Regnier try the pipe-tapping. The fumes of the dynamite were blown through the loose stuff and that made it worse for us. Now they are trying to force a large pipe through the mass of the slide to give us air and food.”