She screamed. Somebody grabbed at her and held her back. She screamed again and again. The demon on the wall threw up his hands and disappeared. Men milled around her and shouted. The fumbling faltered and stopped. The bucket hung half raised, and
from its iron lips the gobs of garbage fell.
Down in the pit was Grandy. He lay on his back in the ruck, his thin arms and legs spread out, his face up. Was he dead? Had he fainted? She would have gone on screaming, but the man who was holding her put his hand roughly over her mouth to stop the noise.
Jane had crouched down, was almost kneeling, right at the edge. Her eyes had a glitter. She was watching hard. Gahagen was shouting hard. Somebody came running with a rope. Gahagen was making as if to loop it around his own waist.
But Grandy wasn't dead or even unconscious. As they watched in the new silence, he struggled up. He got part way out of the ruck. Then, on his knees, he began to move, slowly, with difficulty, crawling across the pit, wallowing in the refuse because he had to, to move at all.
They heard him say, "Wait. Not yet." He was wallowing toward the trunk. He was curiously like someone swimming. He reached the trunk and hung to it a moment as if he might otherwise sink and disappear. They saw him strain to lift the lid, lift it a trifle. Saw
his white head bend to bring his eyes to a position to see within. They saw him let the lid fall, fumble a moment more as if to look again. Then he raised his arm.
They heard his voice come out of the pit, drawn out like a signal cry, humming and droning in the echoing silence, "Let . . . the ro-ope . . . do-own!"
The rope went down with a loop at the end of it. Gahagen lay on the floor, looking over, calling encouragement and instruction.
Jane was a frozen bundle huddled at the brink. Her hand was flat on the dirty floor. Tyl thought, How can she bear to get her hand so dirty?
Somebody called out from the big entrance way, and Oliver came running across the floor. He wound up, panting, "Cop told me! Where's Grandy? Tyl, what happened?"
Tyl thought, No time for gossip.
"He fell."
Oliver's eyes bulged with horror.
Grandy was dangling now. They were pulling him out. He was rising from the pit on the end of the rope. They hauled him over the edge and he crumpled into a heap on the floor. His lids went down wearily.
“Fainted."
"No wonder."
"Oh, by the way, gentlemen," said Grandy's velvet voice calmly, "there's nothing in the trunk but some pieces of plaster, I think, and some old rags."
"My God, Luther, you're game!" cried Gahagen. "Good man!"
"After all," said Grandy wryly, “I was in the neighborhood." He turned his head, eyes closed, a tired old man.
Somebody laughed. Somebody swore. Somebody must have given a signal then, because the rumbling whispered out of silence, began and grew.
Oliver was kneeling at Grandy s side. He was the image of devotion. "Get a doctor," he demanded. "Get an ambulance."
"Nonsense, my dear boy," said Grandy, but his lids were trembling. He looked very sick. He was filthy and contaminated—fastidious Grandy! An old man, after all. He lay on the dirty floor.
"This'll be the end of him!" cried Oliver in despair. "Call a doctor, one of you! Hurry, can't you see! Tyl, snap out of it"
Tyl stood looking on. She had not fallen on her knees. She felt unable to bend or to move at all. She contemplated the image of devotion. She saw the puppet working to swing attention and concern. She saw Grandy lying filthy on the floor and the people all
beginning to swing, to center him.
The scene had nothing to do with her. She was alone, outside the circle and alone, suspended, lost. A puppet without strings would be as limp and lost. The bucket descended, to fall again at its work. She noticed that it had a weakness. She felt it was curiously repulsive that the great wicked tiling with its greedy mouth was so weak
at the neck. It had no neck, only cables. It fell weakly, and then it would nibble and chew and scrabble about, and gape and close and rise sternly, with the cable taut, to carry its load over the wall. Mathilda's eyes followed it.
Jane wasn't in the circle, either. That circle around Grandy, where invisible bands drew like elastic, where he was pulling them with the magnet of himself, and they were responding like iron filings.
Jane screamed. Jane got up from the crouching position and fastened on Blake s arm. "No, stop it! Don't let it start! You've got to look!"
"Look where, Miss?"
“In the trunk! In the trunk!"
"Mr. Grandison looked." The big arm rejected her.
"No, no, not Mr. Grandison! You can't trust him!"
"What do you mean, you can't trust—"
Oliver got up. "What the devil's the matter with you, Jane?" he asked severely.
"Francis is in that trunk! In a minute that thing is going to take it! Where does it take things? Where does it go?"
"The chutes. To the fires," somebody said.
"No!" Jane was nearly hysterical. "I tell you, you can't take his word! Any one mans word! You've got to stop that thing! Open the trunk! Let me see! Let me see inside!"
"Now, just a minute, miss. After all—"
"It's your duty!" she cried. Tears ran down her face. She was frantic.
Oliver said, "Slap her, somebody. Slap her in the face." His voice got shrill. "We've got to get Grandy out of here! He's a mess! Tyl!"
"Seems to me we've done our duty," Blake was answering. "Mr. Grandison saw what was inside the trunk. Now, miss—er—you don't know the trunk came from Press's house, do you? It could have come from anywhere in town. It's full of typhoid germs."
Tyl thought dully, Grandy'll catch typhoid. She was watching the bucket, on its way up now. It seemed to be working a little faster. The men who tended the fires wanted to get through and get home.
Jane said, “I know I can't make you believe he's lying. But he could be mistaken. You can't afford to take even that chance. Suppose he's mistaken? It's a man's life! Mathilda knows he was there in that house."
Tyl stirred. "Yes," she said dully. She thought, If I can trust my own senses.
The bucket was dropping down. Its cables were slack. It fell with that disgusting weakness at the neck. It fell, it nibbled, it crept quite near. Quite near the old turtleback trunk that lay half buried. The buckets jaws were big enough to take it up—just about big
enough. Perhaps next time.
". . . nobody in the cellar."
". . . girl musta made a mistake."
Blake said impatiently, "Now, look, miss. If I thought there was any danger—"
"I don't care what you think! I know there's danger!"
Oliver said, "What's this about, anyhow? I wish somebody would—"
Jane said, "Don't take the time to tell him."
Maddeningly, Blake began, "This young lady—"
"Stop that thing, I tell you!" Jane's voice was ugly with her terror. "Stop it!" She tore her throat with the cry.
Gahagen said, "Aren't you a little bit hysterical?"
Oliver said, "For God's sake, with Grandy maybe dying—"
Grandy was just lying there, pale and wan, filthy, done in, so weary and ill and pathetic.
Jane s eyes turned in her head to catch sight of the bucket going up. Not yet had it got the trunk into its jaws.