Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/273

 "Varge!"—she was terrified now. Her heart seemed to sink and grow cold, as though an icy hand were clutching at it—had they come too late—was he already on his way back to Hebron? She turned frantically to Jonah Sully. "The lantern—a light—quick!" she cried.

On his knees, Jonah Sully lighted the lantern, stood up, flashed it around—and, jaw dropped, stared into Janet's white face. Then he leaned back against the wall and patted weakly at the top of his head.

"'Pears—'pears as if he'd—he'd gone," he gasped, "Jee-rooshey! Never see anything like that in all my born days. 'Tain't possible—not without dynamite." Captain Jonah Sully's voice trailed off into an awestruck whisper. "Jee-rooshey!" he said.

A tense, rigid little figure, motionless, Janet stood staring silently about her. It was a small, narrow place, cement-floored room. Across one end, the one opposite the entrance, had been a cell of brick and cement, with a heavy door, iron-sheeted halfway up, iron-barred the rest of the way. This hung now in utter ruin, sagging out at an angle, held only by a half -broken hinge at the bottom. The centre and upper hinges had been torn from the walls, and the bars of the door were forced outward as from an explosion. Brick and plaster, strewing the floor, adding to the effect of ruin and wreckage, completed the scene.

"There!" muttered the skipper helplessly, pointing to the single window just above his head, whose bars had been bent apart like pieces of wire. "There's where he went! Well, I swan! Couldn't have been dynamite 'cause he'd have blown himself to pieces." Captain Sully