“Oh, look at him! He will kill you!” cried Mildred. “I never will scream again.”
“Never mind, as long as he is safe,” said Oliver. “I don’t care for his shaking his fists. It was my business to save you, before caring about him, or all the chests in the Levels. Never mind now, dear. You won't scream again without occasion, I know. What made you do so? You can’t think what a shriek it was. It went through my head.”
“Part of the wall fell; and the whole of it shakes so, I am sure it will all be down presently. I wish we were at home. But what shall we ever do about Roger? He will kill you, if you go near him: and he can’t stay there.”
“Leave Roger to me,” said Oliver, feeling secretly some of his sister’s fear of the consequences of what had just passed. He stepped on the wall, and was convinced that it was shaking,—almost rocking. He declared that it was quite unsafe, and that he must look to the remaining walls before they slept another night in the building. Mildred must get upon the raft immediately. What was that heap of blue cloth?
Mildred explained, and the cloth was declared too valuable to be left behind. Two pairs of hands availed to pull up the end which stuck under water, and then the children found themselves in possession of a whole piece of home-spun.
“May we use it? We did not make it, or buy it,” said Mildred.
“I thought of that too,” replied her brother. “We will see about that. It is our business to save it, at any rate; so help me with it. How heavy it is with the water!”
They pulled a dozen apples, and rowed away home with their prize.
Ailwin said, as she met them on the stairs, that she was glad enough to see them home again; and more especially without Roger.
“Roger must be fetched, however,” said Oliver, “and the sooner the better.”