“All right,” answered Billie calmly, seeing all at once that anger appeared to give Belle new strength, “only I advise you to get onto this roof first.”
Another moment and Belle had clambered over the cornice and was stretched out breathless on the roof.
“I would much rather have had a baby to look after,” thought Billie, as she looked contemptuously down at the other girl.
“We had better not lose any more time now, Belle,” she said aloud. “If you have got your breath and your nerve back, come ahead.”
Belle pulled herself wearily up and followed.
“My feet are all splinters,” she complained, “and my hands are torn and bleeding.”
“’Tis the voice of the lobster: I heard him declare
‘You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair,’”
repeated Billie, half laughing and half sobbing that this foolish verse should have flashed through her brain at this strange time.
The two girls hurried along the roof toward the front. It was plain that in the scramble to save the lives of the hotel guests there had been no time to save the building, and when the young girls turned the corner of the roof and looked for a moment across the broad expanse of ocean not a hundred yards away it seemed to them that they were alone in the whole world.
“What are we going to do now?” demanded Belle.