The Runaway Skyscraper | Page 9

Murray Leinster
we'll
be buried in the ruins!"
The tilt of the floor became more pronounced. An empty chair slid to
one end of the room. There was a crash.

VI.
Arthur woke to find some one tugging at his shoulders, trying to drag
him from beneath the heavy table, which had wedged itself across his
feet and pinned him fast, while a flying chair had struck him on the
head and knocked him unconscious.
"Oh, come and help," Estelle's voice was calling deliberately.
"Somebody come and help! He's caught in here!"
She was sobbing in a combination of panic and some unknown
emotion.
"Help me, please!" she gasped, then her voice broke despondently, but
she never ceased to tug ineffectually at Chamberlain, trying to drag him
out of the mass of wreckage.
Arthur moved a little, dazedly.
"Are you alive?" she called anxiously. "Are you alive? Hurry, oh, hurry
and wriggle out. The building's falling to pieces!"
"I'm all right," Arthur said weakly. "You get out before it all comes
down."
"I won't leave you," she declared "Where are you caught? Are you
badly hurt? Hurry, please hurry!"

Arthur stirred, but could not loosen his feet. He half-rolled over, and
the table moved as if it had been precariously balanced, and slid heavily
to one side. With Estelle still tugging at him, he managed to get to his
feet on the slanting floor and stared about him.
Arthur continued to stare about.
"No danger," he said weakly. "Just the floor of the one room gave way.
The aftermath of the rock-flaw."
He made his way across the splintered flooring and piled-up chairs.
"We're on top of the safe-deposit vault," he said. "That's why we didn't
fall all the way to the floor below. I wonder how we're going to get
down?"
Estelle followed him, still frightened for fear of the building falling
upon them. Some of the long floor-boards stretched over the edge of
the vault and rested on a tall, bronze grating that protected the approach
to the massive strong-box. Arthur tested them with his foot.
"They seem to be pretty solid," he said tentatively.
His strength was coming back to him every moment. He had been no
more than stunned. He walked out on the planking to the bronze grating
and turned.
"If you don't get dizzy, you might come on," he said. "We can swing
down the grille here to the floor."
Estelle followed gingerly and in a moment they were safely below. The
corridor was quite empty.
"When the crash came," Estelle explained, her voice shaking with the
reaction from her fear of a moment ago, "every one thought the
building was coming to pieces, and ran out. I'm afraid they've all run
away."
"They'll be back in a little while," Arthur said quietly.

They went along the big marble corridor to the same western door, out
of which they had first gone to see the Indian village. As they emerged
into the sunlight they met a few of the people who had already
recovered from their panic and were returning.
A crowd of respectable size gathered in a few moments, all still pale
and shaken, but coming back to the building which was their refuge.
Arthur leaned wearily against the cold stone. It seemed to vibrate under
his touch. He turned quickly to Estelle.
"Feel this," he exclaimed.
She did so.
"I've been wondering what that rumble was," she said. "I've been
hearing it ever since we landed here, but didn't understand where it
came from."
"You hear a rumble?" Arthur asked, puzzled. "I can't hear anything."
"It isn't as loud as it was, but I hear it," Estelle insisted. "It's very deep,
like the lowest possible bass note of an organ."
"You couldn't hear the shrill whistle when we were coming here,"
Arthur exclaimed suddenly, "and you can't hear the squeak of a bat. Of
course your ears are pitched lower than usual, and you can hear sounds
that are lower than I can hear. Listen carefully. Does it sound in the
least like a liquid rushing through somewhere?"
"Y-yes," said Estelle hesitatingly. "Somehow, I don't quite understand
how, it gives me the impression of a tidal flow or something of that
sort."
Arthur rushed indoors. When Estelle followed him she found him
excitedly examining the marble floor about the base of the vault.
"It's cracked," he said excitedly. "It's cracked! The vault rose all of an
inch!"

Estelle looked and saw the cracks.
"What does that mean?"
"It means we're going to get back where we belong," Arthur cried
jubilantly. "It means I'm on the track of the whole trouble. It means
everything's going to be all right."
He prowled about the vault exultantly, noting exactly how the cracks in
the flooring ran and seeing in
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