Old Rocks, Professor Scotch, and the boys watched the hermit's every movement with breathless wonderment. They were impressed, they were held spellbound, they scarcely breathed.
For some moments the strange man stood there, and then, inch by inch, step by step, he advanced toward the tent. He seemed trying to hold back, yet there appeared to be some power dragging him toward the sleeping child.
Frank's first thought was that the man might harm Fay, but the look on the face of the hermit told that he had no such intention. Into the tent he crept, and he knelt beside the bed on which little Fay was sleeping, gazing longingly into her pretty face. A sob came from the depths of his broad breast, and, finally, he stooped and lightly kissed the child's cheek. As he did so, the little girl murmured in her dreams:
"Papa!"
The hermit sprang up, leaped away, and, with a low cry of intense pain, fled into the darkness.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
VANISHING OF LITTLE FAY.
For some moments after the strange man had disappeared the guide, the professor, and the boys sat staring into the darkness in the direction he had taken.
"Wa-al, dog my cats!"