Chapter 17 TRAPPED!
The six children stumbled down the tunnel, still hearing the far-off sound of the drills, and fearingthat at any moment the cellars would be discovered by Mr. Henning, who, no doubt, would beanxiously watching from above!
They came to where they thought the burrow¹ must be, that Dick had dug through - but instead, therewas nothing but a great mass of earth, some of it seeping² into the tunnel! Julian gazed at it by thelight of his torch, dismayed.
'The burrow's fallen in!' he said, his voice shaking. 'What are we to do? We've no spades to digourselves out!'
'We can use our hands,' said Dick, and began to scrabble at the fallen earth, sweeping³ it into thetunnel. But as he scrabbled, more and more earth fell into the widened burrow, and Julian stoppedDick at once. 'No more of that, Dick - you might start an earth-fall, and we'd all be buried alive. Ohgosh - this is awful! We'll have to go back up the passage and try to make the men hear us shouting.
BLOW! That means Mr. Henning will know what we're up to.'
'I don't believe the men will be there much longer,' said Dick, looking at his watch. 'They pack up atfive, and it's almost that now. My word, we've been ages - Mrs. Philpot will wonder where we all are.'
'The drilling has just stopped,' said Anne. 'I haven't got that awful noise inside my ears any longer.'
'In that case, it's certainly no good going back up the tunnel,' said Julian. 'They'd be gone before wegot there. I say, you know - this is serious. I ought to have thought of this - any idiot knows thatground entrances to passages should be strengthened, if they're newly-dug!'
'Well, we can always go back to the cellars and wait for the men to come tomorrow,' said George,sounding more cheerful than she felt.
'How do we know they'll be there tomorrow?' said Dick. 'Henning may have paid them off today, ifhe's disappointed in his hopes!'
'Don't be such a dismal⁴ Jimmy!' said George, sensing that the twins were getting panicky. Theycertainly were worried - but more because they were certain that their mother would be scared todeath if they didn't come home, than for their own safety.
Timmy had been standing⁵ patiently beside George, waiting to get out of the hole. At last, tired ofwaiting, he

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