“I have thought of that and we will make the attempt. The servants are all in the opposite wing, so it is useless to try to arouse their attention; but when Mr. and Mrs. Weldon return, with the others, they may be able to hear us and so rescue us.”
“When will they be back?” Inez inquired.
Mildred considered this question.
“I heard them say they were to stay in town for luncheon, but Mrs. Weldon remarked that they would be back soon after. I think, Inez, they may already have returned and even now may be searching for us. Stay here, and I will go below, so as not to disturb baby, and call.”
She went again down the steep stairs to the lower room where, standing near to the place where they had come through the wall, she uttered a sharp, shrill cry, such as she thought might penetrate the thick blocks of adobe. The sound echoed with startling reverberations through the secret chambers and baby Jane, wakening in affright, set up a series of such lusty screams that it seemed as if they ought to be heard a mile away.
Inez did her best to soothe and quiet the baby, but succeeded only when she had given little Jane the precious bottle of milk.
[CHAPTER XV—MILDRED CONFIDES IN INEZ]
Mildred had hastened upstairs in alarm at the pandemonium of sound her own cry had aroused, for the baby’s screams also gave back a thousand echoes and these sent the little one into fresh paroxysms of terror.
“This won’t do, at all,” she said anxiously, when baby Jane had sobbed herself into a doze, with the bottle to comfort her. “If we scream again it will frighten the child to death.”
“Perhaps they have heard us,” suggested Inez, rocking Jane to and fro in her arms.