The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

than if he had been scientifically bound. And now that the mists had cleared from him, his spine and back felt a sharp pain to which he was no stranger. From his breast-bone down he was held as if in a vise.
    “Are you hurt, Ricky?” He formed the words slowly. Every breath he drew thrust a red-hot knife between his ribs. He turned his head toward her, pillowing his cheek on the gritty clay.
    “No. But where are you, Val? Can’t you come to me?”
    “Sorry. Un—unavoidably detained,” he gasped. “Don’t try any crawling or the rest may come down on us.”
    “Val! What’s the matter? Are you hurt?” Her questions cut sharply through the darkness.
    “Banged up a little. No”—he heard the rustle which betrayed her movements—“don’t try to come to me—Please, Ricky!”
    But with infinite caution she came, until her brother felt the edge of her cape against his face. Then her questing hand touched his throat and slid downward to his shoulders.
    “Val!” He knew what horror colored that cry as she came upon what imprisoned him.
    “It’s all right, Ricky. I’m just pinned in. If I don’t try to move I’m safe.” Quickly he tried to reassure her.
    “Val, don’t lie to me now—you’re hurt!”
    “It’s not bad, really, Ricky—”
    “Oh!” There was a single small cry and a moment of utter silence and then a hurried rustling.
    “Here.” Her hand groped for his head. “I’ve wadded up my cape. Can I slip it under your head?”
    “Better not try just yet. Anything might send off the landslide again. Just—just give me a minute or two to—to sort of catch my breath.” Catch his breath, when every sobbing gasp he drew was a stab!
    “Can’t we—can’t I lift some of the stuff off?” she asked.
    “No. Too risky.”
    “But—but we can’t stay here—” Her voice trailed off and it was then that she must have realized for the first time just what had happened to them.
    “I’m afraid we’ll have to, Ricky,” said her brother quietly.
    “But, Val—Val, what if—if—”
    “If we aren’t found?” he put her fear into words. “But we will be. Rupert is doubtless moving a large amount of earth right now to accomplish that.”
    “Rupert doesn’t know where we are.” She had regained control of both voice and spirit. “We—we may never be found, Val.”
    “I was a fool,” he stated plainly a fact which he now knew to be only too true.
    “I would have come even if you hadn’t, Val,” she answered generously and untruthfully. It was perhaps the kindest thing she had ever said.
    Now that the noise of the catastrophe had died away they could hear again the drip of water. And that sound tortured Val’s dry throat. A glass of cool water—He turned his head restlessly.
    “If we only had a light,” came Ricky’s wish.
    “The flash is probably buried.”
    “Val, will—will it be fun?”
    “What?” he demanded, suddenly alert at her tone. Had the dark and their trouble made her light-headed?
    “Being a ghost. We—we could walk the hall with Great-uncle Rick; he wouldn’t begrudge us that.”
    “Ricky! Stop it!”
    Her answering laugh, though shaky, was sane enough.
    “I do pick the wrong times to display my sense of humor, don’t I? Val, is it so very bad?”
    Something within him crumbled at that question.
    “Not so good, Lady,” he replied in spite of the resolutions he had made.
    She brushed back the hair glued by perspiration to his forehead. Ricky was not gold, he thought, for gold is a rather dirty thing. But she was all steel, as clean and shining as a blade fresh from the hands of a master armorer. He made a great effort and found that he could move his right arm an inch or two. Concentrating all his strength there, he wriggled it back and forth until he could draw it free from the wreckage. But his left shoulder and side were numb save for the pain which came and went.
    “Got my arm free,” Val told her exultantly and reached up to feel for her in the dark. His fingers closed upon coarse cloth. He pulled feebly and something rolled toward him.
    “What’s this?”
    Ricky’s hands slid along his arm to the thing he had found. He could hear her exploring movements.
    “It’s some sort of a bundle. I wonder where it came from.”
    “Some more remains of the jolly pirate days, I suppose.”
    “Here’s something else. A bag, I think. Ugh! It smells nasty! There’s a hole in it—Oh, here’s a piece of money. At least it feels like money.