Through the weeds and brambles we streaked, stumbling over dead branches, scratching faces and clothes—on and on in the direction of that cry. Hattie May was in the lead. Once she tripped and fell and Eve and I had to pull her up. We came to the end of the garden. Beyond the underbrush was so dense that we could see nothing ahead. But Hattie May raced on blindly; her hair streaming about her face, her thin dress torn; while a trickle of blood from a scratch across her nose added to the general wildness of her aspect.
“Help, help, help!” The cry was quite near now. We came to a straggling line of stones where a wall had once been. On the other side we made out the traces of what seemed to be the foundation of an old house. The cries appeared to come from a spot in the undergrowth just beyond this. Hattie May plowed on, Eve was at her heels. “Hamish! Where are you?”
“Here I am!” It was Hamish’s voice, there was no mistaking it—but oddly muffled.
Suddenly ahead of me I saw Eve pause almost like an animal who scents danger. “Wait!” she cried.
But Hattie May did not heed. “Hamish,” she repeated frantically, “where are you!” As she spoke I saw Eve reach out and grab her dress skirt. And she was just in time. A second later, coming up with them, I saw that they were standing on the very edge of a yawning hole. A rotted board half covered it but the board was broken and showed new splinters as if some heavy object had but recently fallen through.
“It’s a well!” Hattie May cried, dropping to her knees and peering into the blackness below. “Oh, Hamish, are you down there--are you drowned?”
“Get a rope,” came back the voice. “I’m perishin’! Get a rope and a man quick!”
“Oh, Hamish, are you drowned?” repeated Hattie May wildly.
“Of course he isn’t drowned,” Eve said calmly. “A drowned person doesn’t scream like that. It’s a dry well, don’t you understand?”
“A dry well!”