At last with a heavy sigh the old man returned the cheque to his pocket, and then cautiously lifting up the loose board, put back the picture whence it came and drew the oak chest over the spot. He then shambled off to the room next door, which was full of odds and ends mingled with a powerful smell of oil and varnish.
June at once made an attempt to get out of prison. But she now found her position to be as she had already surmised. To enter without help had been no mean feat, to escape in the same fashion was impossible. Wedged so tightly inside the Hoodoo, there was neither play nor purchase for her hands; and frantic as her efforts were, they were yet subordinated to the knowledge that it would be quite easy for the thing to topple over. Should that happen the consequence would certainly be alarming and possibly ghastly.
Frantically wriggling in the jaws of the Hoodoo, it did not matter what she did, she was firmly held. And the fear of Uncle Si, who was pottering about quite close at hand, while imposing silence upon her, intensified the growing desperation of her case. She was a mouse in a trap.
Too soon did she learn that only one course was open to her. She must wait for William’s return. Irksome and humiliating as the position was, it was clear that she could do nothing without help.
Would William never come? The minutes ticked on and her durance grew exceedingly vile. She became conscious of pains in her shoulders and feet, she felt as if she could hardly draw breath, her head throbbing with excitement seemed as if it must burst. It was a horrible fix to be in.
Suffering acutely now, she yielded as well as she could to the inevitable. There was simply nothing to be done. She must wait. It was imprisonment in a most unpleasant form and she was frightened by the knowledge that it might continue many hours. Even when William did return, and there was no saying when he would do so, he was quite as likely to enter by the back door as by the shop. So terrible was the thought that June felt ready to faint at the bare idea.
This was a matter, however, in which fate was not so relentless after all. June was doing her best to bear up in the face of this new and paralysing fear when the shop door opened and lo! William came in.
Great was her joy, and yet it had to be tempered by considerations of prudence. She contrived to raise her lips to the mouth of the Hoodoo, and to breathe his name in a tragic whisper.
As he heard her and turned, she urged in the same odd fashion: “For Heaven’s sake—not a sound!”
“Why—Miss June!” he gasped. “Where are you?”