Eleanor's voice trembled as she spoke, her words punctuated by shaky pauses. "I'm sorry Jack. It was just... I had to..."
"Spill it out lass," Jack urged.
Eleanor took a deep breath and recounted the events that led to her leaving her post. She had been entertaining a child when a thunderous rumble erupted from the mountainside, a sound akin to a landslide. This roar had come from within a cave on the mountain where the child's father toiled as a miner, searching for precious gems.
Her worries intensified when the child tugged on her coat, tears in his eyes, begging her to save his father, and Eleanor's heart went out to him. She abandoned her post without a second thought and ventured into the cave alone. The deeper she went, the more she could hear the muffled cries and the ominous sounds of falling debris. Yet she pressed on.
