Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/55

56 candle. There are matches in the candlestick. Feel your way carefully. It's perfectly straight from the top of these hateful stairs to the top of the other ones. Then the kitchen's the first door on the left. And the table's right before you."

"All right," said Lucilla. "Can't I do anything before I go? To make you more comfortable, I mean—lift you, or anything?" "For pity's sake don't try to lift me," said Jane; "that I really would be the last straw. At least, I mean I feel safer where I am. There may be another flight of stairs, or a well, or an oubliette."

"Oh, Jane—this is awful!"

"Nonsense!" said Jane bravely. "It's an adventure; but I can't really enjoy it till we get a light. Does my leg hurt? Yes—it hurts damnably."

"Oh, Jane!" said Lucilla.

"Damn damnably," said Jane with firmness. "Oh, go and get that candle, do. I wish you'd fallen down instead of me. I should have gone straight for the candle. At least, of course, I don't wish it was you—but go, go, go!"

Lucilla went. And Jane, alone in the darkness, set her teeth and cautiously felt her ankle; she could not find any pointed bits sticking through her stocking, which was, she supposed, the attitude a broken bone would take up. But she could find pain, pain, and more pain, at every touch of her finger-tips.

What a very long time it did take some people to go up one flight of stairs and down another and come back with a candle! She leaned her head back against the wall at the stair-foot and strained her eyes at the dark cavity of the staircase above her. No light—only the faint, false, green gleam of the ivy-masked window that had betrayed her No light—no sound of returning footsteps. Only darkness and silence.

Then suddenly, cutting the darkness like a knife a wild shriek echoed through the hollow emptiness of that closed house. Then silence again. Silence and darkness.