Page:Betty Gordon in Washington.djvu/184

174 floor. Two women got on and, at the next floor, two men.

The gate had just closed after this last stop, and Betty had opened her mouth to tell Bobby that her hat was tipped crookedly when with a sickening speed the car began to drop!

"We's slipping! I can't stop her! Oh, good gracious, the brakes or nothin' don't work !" The frenzied wail of the negro who was working valiantly at his levers gave the first intimation of danger.

Betty saw Bob spring to his aid, saw Esther sink in a miserable little white heap to the floor, Bobby put her hands up to her eyes as if to shut out the light, and Louise mechanically try to defend herself from the strangle hold of the woman who stood next to her. It seemed minutes to Betty that the car was falling, and she watched the others' behavior with a curious, semi-detached interest that was oddly impersonal. One of the men passengers began to claw at the gate frantically and the other kept muttering under his breath, softly and steadily, biting off his words crisply and quite unconscious of what he was saying. The woman who had clutched Louise was silent at first, but her companion instantly screamed, and in a fraction of a second she, too, was screaming.

Now Betty had never heard the sound of