Page:Hornung - Irralies Bushranger.djvu/124

 "Right you are."

The steps retreated. Irralie breathed again. Then with her fingers she felt for a dwarf sheet of iron; most of them were as tall as herself, by some eighteen inches in width; but at last she found a short strip cut to fill a gap. It was between two and three feet in height, and it reached to the ground, where it was nailed to a horizontal slab of wood. Five bolts clamped it in all: one to the strip above and two at each side. Irralie tapped it gently about the centre.

"Are you anywhere near this?"

"Just behind!"

"Then if I can unscrew five nuts you are a free man."

She went to work on the first. "Fold your handkerchief," he whispered, "and work through that. There will be less fear of a noise." For now, when it was wanted most, the school-room piano was still, And the night was darker than ever, an unmixed blessing when a ray of moonshine would have meant discovery. But Irralie felt her