“You’ll just have to begin then,” said Billie sternly. “Shall I go first, or would you rather do it?”
“I’ll go—no, you go.”
“I’ll help you,” said Billie, hoisting herself to the window ledge. “Now, don’t look down. Just imagine you are only a few feet from the ground and that it’s a very easy stunt. If you decide beforehand that you can’t do it, why, of course, you can’t. But it will be much easier than staying here to be burned alive in the next few minutes.”
Delivering herself of this boyish but unimpeachable logic, Billie kicked off her slippers and swung herself onto the shutter. Just for one brief instant a sickening nausea came over her as she looked down into the darkness.
Then her fingers grasped the cornice of the roof and, pulling herself up with her two arms, as she had learned to do on the parallel bars in the gymnasium—only in this instance the shutter made a very uncertain elbow rest—she scrambled onto the roof.
“All right, Belle,” she called. “It’s much easier than I thought. Take off your slippers and come ahead, and don’t forget to look up and not down.”
Belle obeyed in sullen silence. She was as determined as Billie not to be burned alive, but her luxurious and self-indulgent nature revolted against this uncomfortable and dangerous method of getting out of the difficulty. However, there was nothing else to do, so she swung out on the shutter as Billie had done, only this time Billie, with all the strength in her body was holding the shutter rigid.
As Belle clung on with her hands and her little pink toes, which she had stuck into the interstices of the shutter, she suddenly looked down. Her grasp weakened and she gave a shriek so piercing that Billie almost slipped headlong over the side of the roof, but she grasped Belle’s slackening wrist.
“Take a breath,” she said, in a trembling voice. “You can do it, if you only make up your mind to.”
“I’ll never, never forgive you,” cried Belle, “and if I live through to-night, I’ll pay you back.”