Rose O'Paradise Part 81

"I've got to be in court at eleven," he explained, "and I'll come for you both about ten this evening. Be ready, you and the boy, and remember what I told you!"

When they were alone once more, she sat down beside the blind child and placed her arm around him.

"Bobbie, will you do exactly what I tell you?"

"Sure," responded Bobbie, cheerfully. "Are we goin' home?"

Without answering him, Jinnie said:

"Then take Happy Pete and don't move until I get back. Just pray and pray and pray! That's all."

Happy Pete snuggled his head under Bobbie's arm and they both sat very still. The boy scarcely dared to breathe, he was so anxious to please his Jinnie.

The farthest window in the inner room door seemed to be the best one to attack. If Morse surprised her, it would be easier to cover up her work. With a frantic prayer on her lips, she took off her shoe and gave the pane of gla.s.s one large, resounding blow. It cracked in two, splinters not only flying into the room, but tumbling into the gorge below. Then she hastily hammered away every particle of gla.s.s from the frame, and, shoving her shoulders through, looked out and down. The very air seemed filled with angels. They could and would save her and Bobbie even in the water--even if they were within the suction of the falls there, some distance below and beyond. Then her eyes swept over the side of the building, and she discovered a stone ledge wide enough for a human being to crawl along. Would she dare try it with her loved ones? She distinctly remembered seeing a painter's paraphernalia in the front, and they might be there still! The more she thought, the greater grew her hope, and with this growing hope came a larger faith.

At least she'd find what was at the end of the building away off there to the east.

To-day, yes, now!... She couldn't wait, for her uncle was coming to-night. It must be now, this minute. She went back to Bobbie.

"I'm going to try it, darling," she told him, kissing his cheek. "Sit right here until I get back. Hang to Petey. He might follow me."

Then cautiously she dragged her body through the hole in the window, and began to crawl along the stone ledge. The roar of the water on the rocks below made her dizzy. But over and over did she cry into G.o.d's ever listening ear:

"He has given--he has given his angels--angels charge over thee."

Jinnie reached the corner of the building, and looked out over the city. The ledge extended around the other side of the building, and she turned the corner and went slowly onward. At the south end she stopped still, glancing about.

Only one thing of any value was in the range of her vision. The two long ropes she had seen long before were still hanging from the roof and fastened securely to a large plank almost on the ground. It brought to Jinnie's mind what Lafe had told her,--of Jimmie Malligan who had been killed, and of how he himself had lost his legs.

Could she, by means of the rope, save the three precious things back in that awful room--Bobbie, Happy Pete, and her fiddle?

To be once more under G.o.d's sun with the blue above gave her new strength. Then she turned and crawled slowly back.

At the corner she grew faint-hearted. It must have been the gorge below that made her breath come in catching sobs. But on and on she went until through the window she could see Bobbie with Happy Pete asleep in his arms. The child was still muttering over his little prayers, his blind eyes rolling in bewildered anxiety.

Jinnie was very white when she sat down beside him. Putting her face close to his, she brushed his cheek lovingly.

"Bobbie," she said, touching his hair with her lips, "how much do you love Jinnie?"

"More'n all the world," replied Bobbie without hesitation.

"Then if you love me _that_ much, you'll do just what I tell you."

"Yes," Bobbie a.s.sured her under his breath.

Jinnie took a towel--she couldn't find a rope--and strapped the violin to Bobbie's back.

"I've got to take my fiddle with me, dearie," she explained, "and I can't carry it because I've got you. You can't carry it because you've got to hold Happy Pete.... Now, then, come on!"

Jinnie drew the reluctant, trembling child to his feet and permitted him to feel around the window-sash; she also held him tightly while he measured the stone ledge with his fingers.

"I'm awful 'fraid," he moaned, drooping.

Jinnie feared he was going to have another fainting spell. To ward it off, she said firmly:

"Bobbie, you want to see Lafe, don't you?"

"S'awful much," groaned Bobbie.

"Then don't hold your breath." She saw him stagger, and grasping him, cried out "Breathe, Bobbie, breathe! We're going to Peggy."

Bobbie began to breathe naturally, and a beatific smile touched the corners of his lips.

"I got so many stars to-day, Jinnie," he quavered, "one slipped right down my throat."

"But you mustn't be scared again, Bobbie! If we stay, the black man'll come back and shake you again and take us to some place that'll make us both sick. You just keep on praying, and I will, too.... Now, then, I'm going out, and when I say, 'Ready,' you crawl after me."

"What's that noise?" s.h.i.+vered Bobbie, clutching Happy Pete.

"It's water," answered Jinnie, "water in the gorge."

Bobbie's teeth chattered. "Do we have to jump in it?"

"No, I'm going to take you down a rope."

With that she crawled through the hole, and when once on the stone ledge, she put her hand in on the boy's head.

"Lift up your leg and hang tight to Petey," she shuddered, and the blind boy did as he was bidden, and Jinnie pulled him, with the dog and fiddle, through the opening. She put him on his knees in front of her with her arms tightly about him.

"Jinnie, Jinnie!" moaned Bobbie. "My heart's jumpin' out of my mouth!"

Jinnie pressed her teeth together with all her might and main, s.h.i.+vering so in terror that she almost lost the strength of her arms.

"Don't think about your heart," she implored, "and don't shake so!

Just think that you're going to Lafe and Peg."

Then they began their long, perilous journey to the corner of the building. It must have taken twenty minutes. Jinnie had no means by which to mark the time. She only knew how difficult it was to keep the blind child moving, with the water below bellowing its stormy way down the rock-hill to the lake. Happy Pete gave a weird little cry now and then. But on and on they went, and at the corner Jinnie spoke:

"Bobbie, we've got to turn here. Let your body go just as I shove it."

Limp was no word for Bobbie's body. He was dreadfully tired. His heart thumped under Jinnie's arms like a battering-ram.

"Bobbie, don't breathe that way, don't!" she entreated.

"I can't help it, honey! my side hurts," he whispered. "But I'll go where you take me, Jinnie dear."

The girl turned him carefully around the sharp ledge corner, and they went on again. Her arms seemed almost paralyzed, but they clung to the child ahead, and the child ahead clung to the little dog, who hung very straight and inert in front of his body.

When they reached the south corner, Jinnie explained their next move to Bobbie in this way: