The boys stood for a second as if petrified in their tracks.
Pour vos vies, courez! (for your lives, run!)
Reddy’s shrill voice broke the spell, and the three dashed for the fast closing aperture. Billy, in the lead, essayed to step aside and let the others get through first, but Henri countered the movement with a violent push against the back of his friend and a reach for Reddy’s neck—the one boy he pushed through and the other he dragged, himself falling, full length, on his face, but safe on the other side of the death trap!
None too soon, for Henri’s legs were powdered with the dust from the earth mass that had fallen in a lump just behind him!
“Glory be!”
Billy said it with more fervency than ever before.
“Glory be!”
He said it again with grateful heart.
They were on the gradual ascent, and finally rested under the slab that would let them out into the free air.
No matter what they might be called upon to face there—it would be in the open.