Thereupon she again seized the stick, and telling the others to go close up to the corners, she threw it toward the transom. The first time it fell back and hit her on the nose, the second time it merely grazed the wall beside the glass, the third time it touched the glass without breaking it.
"There," said Haleema, "I'm sure that I can do it," and with one mighty effort she took aim again, and the stick crashed through the glass. Most of the pieces went outside, but a few bits fell into the closet, and one of these scratched Haleema's forehead. In her triumph at accomplishing her end she did not mind the injury.
"There! you can come out of the corner. We'll get plenty of air from the room, and if any one should be passing, why, it will be easier to hear us. Sing, Concetta, at the top of your voice."
"I'm too tired," said Concetta crossly, "and dreadful hungry. I wish you'd have let that trunk alone, Haleema; that's what made all the trouble."
So the time dragged on, and at length Concetta, though she never would admit it, fell asleep. Haleema kept herself awake by telling wonderful stories—some of them fairy tales, and some of them stories of adventures that she professed to have passed through.
At last even her lively tongue was quiet, and she had given up kicking against the door, as a useless expenditure of energy.
In the meantime the absence of the three girls had become the subject of conjecture on the part of the others downstairs. No one apparently had noticed when they left the gymnasium, though Nellie thought that she had seen them on their way to the street floor.
"Perhaps they've just gone off for fun. Haleema's always up to some mischief."
"They may have run off for good, like Mary Murphy."
"Oh, no, there's no danger; that ain't likely. They know which side their bread's buttered on."