A jagged, water-rotted beam half covered with clay and
sand lay across him, and beyond that was a mass of splintered wood and
wet earth. A little sick, he looked up at Ricky. She was staring at the
wreckage. Her eyes were black in a white, mud-smeared face.
"Val--Val!" His name came as the thinnest of whispers.
"It isn't as bad as it looks," he said hurriedly. "Something underneath
must be supporting most of the weight or--or I wouldn't be here at all."
"Val," she repeated, and then, paying no heed to his frantic injunctions
to keep away, she dug at earth and rotten wood with her hands. Using the
long bundle clumsily wrapped in stained canvas, she levered a piece of
beam out of the way so that she might get down on her knees and scoop up
the sand and clay.
"Ricky! Val!" The light swung ahead as someone scrambled through the
hole in the barrier wall. Then, when the ray held firm upon them, the
headlong rush was checked for a long instant. "Val!"
"Get her--away," he begged. "Another--slip--"
But before he had done, a long arm gathered Ricky up as if she had been
a child. "Right," came the firm answer. "Sam, take Miss 'Chanda back.
Then--"
Val was watching the reflection of the flash on the broken roof above
him. Sand slid in tiny streams down the wall, mingling with the greenish
trickles of water. There were queer blue and green arcs painted on the
brick which had something to do with the hot pain behind his eyes.
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