Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/198

 he realized it was no time for argument.

"Then this is the best way over. Here, give me your hand, and be careful of that loose beam."

They scrambled over the summit and, amid a shower of sliding bricks, slipped down on the other side. A dark figure lay stretched upon the stones, moving a little and still holding a flickering, lighted candle. It was Michael.

"Yes, Miss Betsey dear," he affirmed cheerfully, when they had at last brought him to recognize who they were, "and I've a broken leg I'm thinking from the way it feels by not having any feeling at all. And will you hold up the candle and see what is running down my face?"

"Oh, Michael, Michael, what were you doing, how could you be so foolish?" Betsey reproached him; "your head is cut and what is running over your face is blood." She began, forthwith, to try to tie it up with her handkerchief.

"Then glory be to all the Saints," was Michael's unexpectedly joyful reply; "there is nothing that will break the charm of ill luck like the letting of blood. It will all go well now."

Betsey looked helplessly at David. Was the poor old man gone out of his wits entirely?

"Don't you know better than to risk your life over such nonsense? Won't you ever learn better, Michael?" David said severely, although the