He leapt through the open window onto the slates a few feet below. Almost immediately, Osceola lifted Deborah’s limp body over the sill, where Bill caught her in his arms and hurried with his sagging burden toward a corner of the roof. There he put down the unconscious girl and lying flat, peered over the edge of the rotting gutter.
Osceola dropped beside him. “The rod looks strong enough, but do you think those rusty iron stanchions will stand the strain?”
“Our weight may pull a few loose, but that won’t bring the rod down. I just wanted to be sure there wasn’t any break—that it ran all the way to the ground.” He jumped to his feet. “Give me a hand with Deb.”
“But I’ll—”
“No, you won’t. I was trained to this at the Academy. Pick her up and hang her on my shoulders—not that way—head one side and legs t’other, so her body drapes round my neck. That’s it. Now rip off your belt and lash her wrists to her ankles. She mustn’t slip and I’ll have to use both hands on the rod. Got it fast? Fine. Will you go first?”
“No—you—I’ll help you over the edge. And Bill—we’ve only a minute or two left—”
With Deborah’s dead weight balanced on his shoulders and the base of his neck, Bill got down on his knees and keeping firm hold of the lightning rod that ran from the chimney across the roof on raised iron stanchions, went gingerly backwards over the creaking gutter. Then slowly, hand over hand he let himself and his burden down the rod. Notwithstanding his confident words to Osceola, he was fearful of pulling loose the staples, that at intervals of three or four feet secured the rod to the side of the house. He was obliged to use his hands as his sole means of support. If he pulled outward, pressing the rubber soles of his sneakers against the siding, the chances were the rotten wood holding the staples would give. For the same reason, he refrained from planting his feet on the stanchions themselves, as he let himself down.
The strain of the double weight was fearful. His shoulder muscles and biceps felt as though they were at the cracking point. And the corrugated rod lacerated the palms of his hands until they were bleeding badly.
He was descending the side of the house that looked over the field and the road. Suddenly he heard a shout from below, and the answering hail from Osceola just above his head told him that the police were arriving.
“Get back! Get back—all of you!” yelled the chief. “There’s a bomb in the house—likely to explode any time now!”