Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach Part 14

"Sounded like an explosion to me."

"Maybe it's an earthquake."

"Oh, see the smoke."

"The school must be on fire!"

"I'm going to get out of here!"

"Oh, yes, let me out; I don't want to be burnt alive!"

"Fire! Fire! The Hall is on fire!"

In an instant a panic was on. The teachers alone and some of the older girls kept their heads. The younger pupils rushed for the doors in a frenzy of fright.

The English teacher ran to one of the doors of her recitation room and held it fast. But there was another door in the room, and toward this the frightened girls poured in a mad stampede. Just outside was the stairway with several sharp turns, and if the fugitives jammed up on one of the landings it might mean maiming or death for some of them.

Quick as a flash, Nan Sherwood acted. She sprang to the danger door, slammed it shut and put her back against it. The tide surged up against her. The younger girls clawed at her, scratched her hands, did all in their power to force her away from the door. But she held her place with desperation, though her clothes were torn, and her hands were bleeding.

Then through the crowd came Linda Riggs, bowling the smaller girls out of her way, her face as pale as death and her eyes almost bulging out of her head with fright.

"Let me get out, Nan Sherwood!" she screamed, tearing at her with all her might. "Let me out! Let me out! I'll die! I won't stay here to be burned to death! Get away from that door! Let me get out!"

She tore at Nan and struck her in the face. She was a strong girl, and doubly strong now in her rage and fright. But Nan braced herself and still held the door, though her strength was fast ebbing.

Just then help came. Rhoda Hammond and Bess Harley caught hold of Linda and pulled her away. They thrust her into a seat and held her down, while Laura and others of the older girls pacified and soothed the younger ones.

The worst was over. The steam had thinned out and drifted away. The pupils slowly went back to their seats at the command of the teacher and sat there, sobbing and moaning and weak from excitement. But the panic had been quelled.

Now that the crisis had pa.s.sed, Nan felt her strength leaving her, and she had scarcely enough left to get back to her seat. She almost fell into it when at last she reached it.

Just then, Dr. Prescott, who from the moment of the first alarm had been in other parts of the building, helping to quell the excitement, entered the room. She took her stand beside the teacher and held with her a brief conversation in which she learned what had occurred in the room.

Then she spoke a few quiet words of a.s.surance, telling the girls that there had not been, and was not now, any danger and warmly commending the bravery and self-control of the teacher and the older girls. She then dismissed them.

A refres.h.i.+ng half-hour in their rooms did the girls a world of good, and when the lunch gong sounded they gathered about the table in something like their normal spirits. It is true that none ate very much, but tongues flew fast in comment and conjecture.

"How could it have happened?" was the many-times-repeated question. Was it the janitor's fault? He must have forgotten to turn off the drafts perhaps, and the acc.u.mulated gas had exploded.

"Probably something was wrong with the safety valve," conjectured Rhoda, building better than she knew.

"Well," said Nan, as at last they rose from the table, "I hope they'll find out what did cause it so that it will never happen again."

Naturally, there were no more lessons that afternoon. The girls gathered in groups in the corridors or in each others' rooms excitedly discussing the stirring events of the morning.

Nan lay upon the couch in her room, resting after her exertions, when Grace, who had been telephoning to Walter, came in bursting with news.

"What do you think I heard downstairs!" she cried before she was fairly in the room. "Doctor Beulah thinks that it wasn't an accident at all, but that the whole thing was caused by some one tampering with the boiler."

The girls all spoke at once.

"Oh, that couldn't be!"

"Who'd have any object in doing a thing that might have cost lives?"

"Isn't it awful!"

"Anyway," Grace went on as soon as they gave her a chance to speak, "they say that a heavy cord had been tied to the valve to keep it down and the broken ends of the cord were found hanging from it."

The girls were stupefied with astonishment.

Suddenly Laura started up and walked excitedly about the room.

"There's this much about it!" she exclaimed. "If some one did do it purposely, Doctor Beulah will soon find out when it was done, and why it was done--_and who did it, too_," she added significantly.

Laura knew by the expression on all the faces that the same thought that had been in her mind when she spoke those last words was in the minds of the other girls, too.

If two very depressed and frightened girls in another room could have heard them, their spirits would have sunk still lower.

"What did I tell you!" cried Cora wildly. "I begged you not to do it.

And what did you make by it? Disgraced yourself and only made Nan Sherwood more popular than ever."

For once, Linda was silent. Cora made the most of her chance to get back at Linda for her high-handed treatment of her. She went on mercilessly:

"I was so ashamed of you," she said. "You made such a show of yourself.

I didn't think you could be such a coward."

"Well," whined Linda, "I had more to live for, with all my money, than they had."

"That sounds like you," gibed Cora disgustedly. "Well, I pity you if Doctor Beulah finds out you did it. And she will, you can just depend on that."

In the meantime Bess, with some other girls, visited the bas.e.m.e.nt to look at the wreckage. When she came back she had a queer look on her face. She called Nan to one side.

"See what I found," she said and held out a small handkerchief with a daisy worked in one corner. "It was in the bas.e.m.e.nt, close to the wrecked boiler."

Nan looked at the bit of linen and started. She remembered having seen Linda Riggs with such a handkerchief more than once.

"But Linda may have dropped it down there since the explosion," she said, quickly.

"I guess not!" drawled Bess. "This looks like a bit of real evidence to me."

"Oh, Bess--don't say anything--at least not till you are sure."

"I won't. But I'll remember it."

At this moment the gong sounded a summons to the main a.s.sembly hall, a summons which the girls obeyed with alacrity.

Knowing as they did that an examination of the steam plant had been going on, and their interest and curiosity quickened by the rumors they had heard, it was not long before every seat was filled and all eyes turned expectantly on Dr. Prescott. She sat there, rather pale, but dignified and well poised.