“I’m warm enough, but my clothes are all stiff, like they’d been wet, and I’m terr’ble hungry.”
“So am I.”
“Let’s try to get out and find something to eat. I had a few cakes in my box. Do you s’pose Noni rolled us off, or we rolled ourselves off his back?”
“I don’t know. But we didn’t die, so we can still go on to find our father—when we get out of here. Let’s go now.”
“Wait. We’ve got to give God thanks, first. ’Cause it was He who made Benoni, a horse, have sense to save us alive. Do you hear me, brother?”
He answered rather absently. He was as grateful as she but he had not only heard her—he had, also, heard something else: a dull, creeping sound from somewhere beyond them in this cavern. He hoped she had not noticed this and was glad when she stood up and stretched herself and, at the same time, stumbled against something which sharply rattled.
“Oh! my box! My precious old tin box! For true, for true!” she cried.
Already, they fancied they could see a little through this darkness and moved toward each other till their hands closed together upon the battered botany-box, which Carlota had always carried with her on her rambles a-field. In an instant she had opened it and joyfully exclaimed:
“The cakes! They are still in it! They are—they are!”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!”