Fortune Favors the Brave

After they ate he watched her, then took her hand.  “Davlin, you know we will die.”

She looked up at him.  “Yes.”

God, they were both too young.  Then he kissed her.

She relaxed, responding fully for a moment.  Then he felt her tension build until she leaned back, looking at him.  She glanced at her wrist watch and got up.  “Allister, there must be a way out.  We can’t die.  It’s almost seven, but we still have an hour.”

Feeling his strength return, Allister stood, too. 

She cocked her head at him.  “If we give up, we’re dead.  There’s some way out of here.  All we have to do is find the idea.  Then we can carry it out.”

Again, Allister started walking around and through the huge ropes, looking up at the terrible bells.  He glanced at his watch.  Now it was seven fifteen.

Davlin urged, “Let’s think!  There’s always a way.”

For a while they were both quiet.  Allister tried desperately to concentrate.  Yet his mind kept playing tricks on him.  He thought about his mother and dad.  Remembering the small piece of paper in his pocket, he could write them a farewell note.  But that was all negative.  Jack Everest came into his mind.  What would Jack do when Allister was not there to meet him at the Kindler?  Once more he tried to get the crushing fear thought out of his mind.  This time he really went off on a tangent.  His mind’s eye pictured Margo grinning at him defiantly-- happily.  “You have only about fifteen minutes,” she chortled with an evil laugh.

Allister raged inside, his fight for life rekindled.  He glanced at his watch.  Margo was right about the time.  It was fifteen until eight.  Davlin was right.  There had to be an answer to every puzzle.

He found the small piece of paper in his pocket, as well as a pencil.  He walked over to the middle slit where the huge rope went down below.  The bell ringers must be there by now.  He had thought of writing a message on the piece of paper and sending it down through the slits.  But just a small sheet of paper would only float.  No telling where it would land.  And there was no twine or anything – nothing to tie a note to.

At that moment, Davlin picked up the empty water bottle.  All at once, the idea came.  He took the bottle from her.  God, he thought, it must be ten minutes until eight now.

On the paper he quickly printed.  “Don’t ring the bells!  Help us!  We’re prisoners in the belfry!”

He threw the pen down and rolled the paper into a small roll, slipping the message inside the bottle.  He dropped it through the slit in the floor, trying to watch it.  Yet it went so far!  He heard nothing.  If it crashed below he couldn’t tell.  There wasn’t a sound.  There wasn’t even any light below that Allister could see.

Glancing at his watch he could barely see in the dim light that it was a minute until eight.  He moved toward Davlin, arranging her coat around her head as tightly as he could.  Then he pulled the sleeves of his own jacket around his ears.  He held her in his arms, and braced himself.

It came!  His muscles jerked as the loud peel of church bells started.