“Stop! Go back! Back!”
Was it a human voice? Was it a superhuman voice, or was it no voice at all? In the light of that which followed Johnny will always believe it to have been a human voice.
At any rate, he obeyed. He stopped.
It was well that he did. Ten seconds had not passed when the whole world appeared to have been blown into fragments.
Johnny was thrown twenty feet, to go crashing against the wall. He rolled over once, then lay quite still.
For a short time the place remained in utter silence. Then there was a sound; but Johnny did not hear it. It was a most ominous sound. It increased in volume as the seconds passed. It was the sound of rushing water. Above the tunnel, between it and the surface of the street run the great water mains that quench the city’s thirst and protect it from devastating fires. The explosion had torn away the thin tunnel wall and had broken one of these water mains.
What would follow was a thing prearranged and quite automatic. Great iron doors at the end of the museum spur would close. This would confine the flood to the spur. The main tunnel would be safe from flood. In time the motor would be shut off and the main mended. Not, however, until the museum spur had been filled with water, perhaps for hours.
In the meantime Johnny lay where he had fallen. He was quite still. Was it the stillness of death?
Before the low rising tide of water, rats, a whole army of them, went scurrying away. Some raced over the boy’s unconscious form. Still he did not stir. And Johnny had always held rats in great abhorrence.
Creeping like some vile reptile, the water advanced. Now at a depth of two inches, it reached the boy. It rose.