“The lantern must be there,” Penny thought. “It’s probably hidden by a tree or the high bank. Of course it’s there.”
She listened with a growing tension. The car was not slowing down. Even Harry Griffith turned his head to gaze toward the entrance ramp of the drawbridge.
It was all over in an instant. A scream of brakes, a loud splintering of the wooden barrier. [The speeding automobile struck the side of the steel bridge, spun sideways and careened down the bank to bury itself in the water.]
CHAPTER
19
A DARING RESCUE
Those in the motor boat who had witnessed the disaster were too horrified to speak. They could see the top of the car rising above the water into which it had fallen, but there was no sign of the unfortunate driver or other possible occupants.
Penny began to kick off her shoes.
“No!” shouted her father, divining her purpose. “No! It’s too dangerous!”
Penny did not heed for she knew that if the persons in the car were to be saved it must be by her efforts. Her father could not swim well and Harry Griffith was needed at the wheel of the motor boat.
Scrambling to the gunwale, the girl dived into the water. She could see nothing. Groping her way to the overturned coupe, she grasped a door handle and turned it. All her strength was required to pull the door open. Her breath was growing short now. She worked faster, with frantic haste.
A hand clutched her own. Before she could protect herself she felt the man upon her, clawing, fighting, trying to climb her shoulders, upward to the blessed air.