"The Lord have mercy on us!" he groaned.
Mr. Lee groped round for Audrey. Her feet were blistering through her thin boots, as she sank ankle-deep in the steaming slime, which came pouring down without intermission. Her father caught her by the waist and swung her into the back of the cart. Another of the rabbiters got up on the front and took the reins from Edwin, who did not know the way. The other two, with Mr. Lee, caught hold of the back of the cart and ran until they came to their own camp. The tents lay flat; the howling dogs had fled; but their horse, which they had tethered for the night, had not yet broken loose.
Here they drew up, sorely against Mr. Lee's desire, for he could no longer distinguish the glimmer of his charcoal fires, and his heart was aching for his children—his innocents, his babies, as he fondly called them—in that moment of dread. As the rabbiters halted, he stooped to measure the depth of mud on the ground, alarmed lest the children should be suffocated in their sleep; for they might have fallen asleep, they had been left so long.
"Not they," persisted Edwin. "They are not such duffers as to lie down in mud like this; and as for sleep in this unearthly storm—" he stopped abruptly.
"Hark!" exclaimed his father, bending closer to the ground. "Surely that was a 'coo,' in the distance."
Every ear was strained. Again it came, that recognized call for help no colonist who reckons himself a man ever refuses to answer.
Faint as was the echo which reached them, it quivered with a passionate entreaty.
"They are cooing from the ford," cried one. But another contradicted. It was only when bending over the upturned roots of a fallen tree that the feeble sound could be detected, amidst all the fearsome noises raging in the upper air.
The rabbiters felt about for their spades, and throwing out the mud from the cavity, knelt low in the loosened earth. They could hear it now more plainly.
Mr. Lee pressed his ear to the freshly-disturbed mould, and listened attentively. The cry was a cry of distress, and the voice was the voice of his friend.