“Oh, thank you,” cried the two girls, seeing the wisdom of his suggestion immediately.
Miss Sallie, a tragic spectacle, came from around the house; her white hair tumbling down her back, her face gray with ashes and her lavender garments torn and wet.
“Girls,” she murmured, her voice trembling, from fatigue and excitement, “we have done all we could do for the major. I think we had better give it up and go while we can get away.”
“Let us have one more chance. Aunt Sallie, dearest,” begged Ruth, “and if that fails there will still be time to get away in the motor car.”
“What are you going to do now, child?” asked the poor woman distractedly.
“You go and sit down in one of the long chairs on the piazza and rest,” replied her niece, patting her hand tenderly, “and leave everything to us.”
The girls could hear the throbbing of the pumping engine somewhere below, as they dashed up the steps. John had connected all the cisterns and the machinery was working in good order. The candles and lanterns they carried hardly made an impression in the blackness of the great empty garret, but an exclamation from John called attention to the fact that the sliding partition was down.
“I never knew it to happen before,” he said, “except once when I was too small to understand.”
“How are we going to manage?” asked Grace, looking overhead.
“Through the scuttle to the roof,” replied Barbara, pointing to a ladder leading to a trapdoor.