“We’ll see.”
At that instant, all unseen, a dripping figure emerged from the water close to the submerged fishing net. It was the figure that, but a short half hour before had rested motionless upon the rocks; a slender girl whose figure was for a second fully outlined by a distant flash of lightning. She carried some dark object beneath her right arm.
CHAPTER XIV
THE DISAPPEARING PARCEL
In the meantime Florence and Jeanne were making the best of their opportunity to leave the “made land.” They hoped to cross the bridge and reach the car line before the threatened storm broke. Petite Jeanne was terribly afraid of lightning. Every time it streaked across the sky she gripped her strong companion’s arm and shuddered.
It was impossible to make rapid progress. From this point the beaten path disappeared. There were only scattered tracks where other pedestrians had picked their way through the litter of debris.
Here Florence caught her foot in a tangled mass of wire and all but fell to the ground; there Jeanne stepped into a deep hole; and here they found their way blocked by a heap of fragments from a broken sidewalk.
“Why did we come this way?” Petite Jeanne cried in consternation.
“The other was longer, more dangerous. Cheer up! We’ll make it.” Florence took her arm and together they felt their way forward through the darkness that grew deeper and blacker at every step.
Rolling up as they did at the back of a city’s skyscrapers, the mounting clouds were terrible to see.
“The throng!” Petite Jeanne’s heart fairly stopped beating. “What must a terrific thunderstorm mean to that teaming mass of humanity?”