Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/272

 I paid no heed to the talk around me. I was stunned.

Again there was silence. All were plunged in thought. How long we remained so I cannot tell, but suddenly there was a cry;

"The pumps are at work!"

This was said with one voice, for the sounds that had just reached our ears had seemed to touch us by an electric current and we all rose up. We should be saved!

Carrory took my hand and squeezed it.

"You're a good boy," he said.

"No, you are," I replied.

But he insisted energetically that I was a good boy. His manner was as though he were intoxicated. And so he was; he was intoxicated with hope. But before we were to see the beautiful sun again and hear the birds in the trees, we were to pass through long, cruel days of agony, and wonder in anguish if we should ever see the light of day again.

We were all very thirsty. Pages wanted to go down and get some water, but the professor advised him to stay where he was. He feared that the débris which we had piled up would give way beneath his weight and that he would fall into the water.

"Remi is lighter, give him a boot, and he can go down and get water for us all," he said.

Carrory's boot was handed to me, and I prepared to slip down the bank.