She dragged her dripping body up from the water. She crawled upwards, over stone slabs; she found the door. She pushed it open and slammed it behind her, peering to see if the water were already lapping over the threshold.
Not yet ... not yet. But how much longer?
She could not see a soul as far as her eye could reach. The streets, the squares, lay as if dead—bathed in the whiteness of the moonlight. But she was mistaken—or was the light growing weaker and yellower from second to second?
An impact, which threw her against the nearest wall, ran through the earth. The iron door through which she had come flew from its bolts and gaped open. Black and silent, the water slipped over the threshold.
Maria collected herself. She screamed with her whole lungs:
“The water’s coming in—!”
She ran across the square. She called for the guard, which, being on constant duty, had to give the alarm signal in danger of any kind.
The guard was not there.
A wild upheaval of the earth dragged the girl’s feet from under her body and hurled her to the ground. She raised herself to her knees and stretched up her hands in order, herself, to set the siren howling. But the sound which broke from the metal throat was only a whimper, like the whimpering of a dog, and the light grew more and more pale and yellow.
Like a dark, crawling beast, in no hurry, the water wound its way across the smooth street.