Whats Bred In The Bone | Page 7

isthmus of archway still
held out in isolation just above their heads. At any moment that isthmus
might give way too, and, falling on their carriage, might crush them
beneath its weight. Their lives depended upon the continued resisting
power of some fifteen yards or so of dislocated masonry.
Appalled at the thought, Cyril moved from his place for a minute, and
went forward to examine the fallen block in front. Then he paced his
way back with groping steps to the equally ruinous mass behind them.
Elma's eyes, growing gradually accustomed to the darkness and the
faint glimmer of the oil lamps, followed his action with vague and
tearful interest.
"If the roof doesn't give way," he said calmly at last, when he returned

once more to her, "and if we can only let them know we're alive in the
tunnel, they may possibly dig us out before we choke. There's air
enough here for eighteen hours for us."
He spoke very quietly and reassuringly, as if being shut up in a fallen
tunnel between two masses of earth were a matter that needn't cause
one the slightest uneasiness; but his words suggested to Elma's mind a
fresh and hitherto unthought-of danger.
"Eighteen hours," she cried, horror-struck. "Do you mean to say we
may have to stop here, all alone, for eighteen hours together? Oh, how
very dreadful! How long! How frightening! And if they don't dig us out
before eighteen hours are over, do you mean to say we shall die of
choking?"
Cyril gazed down at her with a very regretful and sympathetic face.
"I didn't mean to frighten you," he said; "at least, not more than you're
frightened already; but, of course, there's only a certain amount of
oxygen in the space that's left us; and as we're using it up at every
breath, it'll naturally hold out for a limited time only. It can't be much
more than eighteen hours. Still, I don't doubt they'll begin digging us
out at once; and if they dig through fast, they may yet be in time, even
so, to save us."
Elma bent forward with her face in her hands again, and, rocking
herself to and fro in an agony of despair, gave herself vip to a paroxysm
of utter misery. This was too, too terrible. To think of eighteen hours in
that gloom and suspense; and then to die at last, gasping hard for breath,
in the poisonous air of that pestilential tunnel.
For nearly an hour she sat there, broken down and speechless; while
Cyril Waring, taking a seat in silence by her side, tried at first with
mute sympathy to comfort and console her. Then he turned to examine
the roof, and the block at either end, to see if perchance any hope
remained of opening by main force an exit anywhere. He even began
by removing a little of the sand at the side of the line with a piece of
shattered board from the broken carriage in front; but that was clearly
no use. More sand tumbled in as fast as he removed it. He saw there
was nothing left for it but patience or despair. And of the two, his own
temperament dictated rather patience.
He returned at last, wearied out, to Elma's side. Elma, still sitting
disconsolate on the footboard, rocking herself up and down, and

moaning low and piteously, looked up as he came with a mute glance
of inquiry. She was very pretty. That struck him even now. It made his
heart bleed to think she should be so cowed and terrified.
"I'm sorry to bother you," he said, after a pause, half afraid to speak,
"but there are four lamps all burning hard in these four compartments,
and using up the air we may need by-and-by for our own breathing. If I
were to climb to the top of the carriage--which I can easily do--I could
put them all out, and economize our oxygen. It would leave us in the
dark, but it'd give us one more chance of life. Don't you think I'd better
get up and turn them off, or squash them?"
Elma clasped her hands in horror at the bare suggestion.
"Oh dear, no!" she cried hastily. "Please, PLEASE don't do that. It's
bad enough to choke slowly, like this, in the gloom. But to die in the
dark--that would be ten times more terrible. Why, it's a perfect Black
Hole of Calcutta, even now. If you were to turn out the lights I could
never stand it."
Cyril gave a respectful little nod of assent.
"Very well," he answered, as calm as ever. "That's just as you will. I
only meant to suggest it to you. My one wish is to do the best I can