Where was it? A sharp, sobbing cry, striking the mist three or four times in rapid succession,—hushing suddenly,—breaking into shrieks like a frightened child's,—dying plaintively down.
We struggled desperately after it, through the fog. Wind and water took the sound up and tossed it about. Confused and bewildered, we beat about it and about it; it was behind us, before us, at our right, at our left,—crying on in a blind, aimless way, making us no replies,—beckoning us, slipping from us, mocking us utterly.
The Doctor stretched his hands out upon the solid wall of mist; he groped with them like a man struck blind.
"To die there,—in my very hearing,—without a chance—"
And while the words were upon his lips the cries ceased.
He turned a gray face slowly around, shivered a little, then smiled a little, then began to argue with ghastly cheerfulness:—
"It must be only for a moment, you know. We shall hear it again,—I am quite sure we shall it again, Hansom!"
Hansom, making a false stroke, I believe for the first time in his life, snapped an oar and overturned a lantern. Some drift-wood, covered with slimy weeds, washed heavily up at our feet. I remember that a little disabled ground-sparrow, chased by the tide, was fluttering and drowning just in sight, and that Myron drew it out of the water, and held it up for a moment to his cheek.
Bending over the ropes, George spoke between his teeth to me:—
"It may be a night's job on 't, findin' of the body."