“I remember,” he muttered. “The walk and my dead mother, and then——?”
“We fought our way back, Dennis. Lost and beaten we stumbled upon this unspeakable refuge, and here we have lain all night.”
“This?—this?” (Whimple’s eyes were wandering over roof and floor of the little chamber.) “Surely, sir, you know where we are?”
“Not I, indeed.”
“In your own grounds, sir—the old ice-house in the thicket.”
Tuke stared a moment; then, with a shout, scrambled up through the opening and gave out a yell of recall. There was no response. His two companions, to whatever fortune, were vanished and out of earshot. Convinced of this, he turned and slipped again into his burrow.
“You are sure, Dennis?”
“Quite sure, sir.”
“And we have fancied ourselves buried in some isolated spinney, and looked to nothing but a lingering death where none could come nigh us through the drifts.”
“Is it so bad as that? We may find it hard to win to the house even yet, then.”