“Tell me all,” he said, in a low voice.
And Marcus told him, for Loïs could not, how Nadjii had covered them with her own body, and how she had been wounded unto death.
“And the child?” said Charles, burying his face in his hands. “She would not have left it behind.”
Again there was a moment’s silence; then Loïs knelt down beside him, and, laying her hand on his arm, said,—
“When she was dying, she told us where to find it—in the trunk of a tree in the forest where she had laid it. Roger went to fetch it.”
“Roger did that?” exclaimed Charles. “Let me see my boy, Loïs!”
She hesitated just for one moment, then continued slowly, not daring to raise her tearful eyes to his face,—
“He looked for the child carefully; he found the spot where Nadjii had told him the babe was, but it was gone.”
Charles sprang up. “Stolen!” he exclaimed, his eyes flashing.
“We fear so,” said Loïs. “Certainly there was no trace of any bodily harm having befallen him; he had simply been taken away.”