As she was thus engaged she heard a heavy tread on the floor over her head.
McGinnis had just come in.
And he came with haste, for he had just heard of the remarkably high tide, and feared that his prisoner had fallen a victim to its cold embrace.
He now understood the meaning of Helen's cries, and their not having been repeated under such circumstances, he considered as indicating her death.
"I say—I say, down there!" he yelled. "Are you alive and kicking?"
Helen had nothing to gain by keeping silence, and as she arose from her knees, she replied in the affirmative.
"Good enough!" grunted her jailer, banging shut the trap-door.
When he afterwards brought Helen down something to eat, and saw the height to which the water had risen, he gazed at her in blank astonishment.
He could not understand how it was that she had preserved her life.
"Thunder!" he exclaimed. "How did you do it, gal? Why, there wasn't more'n an inch of space left between the water and the floor."