Knight in his perplexity stood still for a moment, and collected
his thoughts. The vicar's account of the fall of the tower was
that the workmen had been undermining it all the day, and had left
in the evening intending to give the finishing stroke the next
morning. Half an hour after they had gone the undermined angle
came down. The woman who was half buried, as it seemed, must have
been beneath it at the moment of the fall.
Knight leapt up and began endeavouring to remove the rubbish with
his hands. The heap overlying the body was for the most part fine
and dusty, but in immense quantity. It would be a saving of time
to run for assistance. He crossed to the churchyard wall, and
hastened down the hill.
A little way down an intersecting road passed over a small ridge,
which now showed up darkly against the moon, and this road here
formed a kind of notch in the sky-line. At the moment that Knight
arrived at the crossing he beheld a man on this eminence, coming
towards him. Knight turned aside and met the stranger.
'There has been an accident at the church,' said Knight, without
preface. 'The tower has fallen on somebody, who has been lying
there ever since. Will you come and help?'
'That I will,' said the man.
'It is a woman,' said Knight, as they hurried back, 'and I think
we two are enough to extricate her. Do you know of a shovel?'
'The grave-digging shovels are about somewhere.
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