"Ay, they was drownded, sure enough," spoke a woman's shrill voice, high above the cackle of the hens and the quack-quack of the ducks—"drownded dead, an' more's the pity; an' their ma dead, too, an' their pa in Africa, an' their aunties takin' on terrible 'bout them."
"We isn't dwowned," called out Joan in her clear, sweet voice, shaking back her yellow mane and surveying the faces about her with merry eyes. "We was lost—quite lost—and now we's founded and goin' home again."
"Don't you see that we're not drowned?" said Darby seriously, turning round and round before the amused onlookers. "We wouldn't be here if we were drownded, would we? I'm really and truly Darby Dene—I mean Guy Dene, for that's my proper name; and this is my sister Joan—Doris, I should say—with kind Mr. Bambo, who has helped us to run away from some wicked people who wanted to keep us always. Now, please, won't you let us on board the barge? We'll go below into the little house where we hid before, and not disturb you a bit. You see, we came with you, and you ought to take us back again," added the boy, with a sudden gleam of amusement in his big gray eyes.
Here the dwarf came slowly forward, painfully conscious that all eyes were fixed upon him. Yet he did not flinch. He beckoned the bargeman aside, and in a few broken, gasping sentences told him the main facts of the children's story.
The instant the young fellow clearly grasped the situation and understood his own share in the adventure, he generously cast all fear of consequences to the winds, and there and then agreed to take the travellers with him to Firdale as fast as his boat could bear them.
And as the old brown horse pulled slowly off, dragging the big red barge-boat away behind him, a hearty cheer broke from the watchers on the wharf, and "A safe journey!" was flung from every lip after the Smiling Jane and the little voyagers whom she bore on board.
It was a mild, mellow day, such as not infrequently comes towards the end of October—a day whose brightness almost deludes one into thinking that summer is not entirely gone, yet with a hint of change in the still, waiting earth, the silently-falling leaves; a touch of crispness in the air which foretells winter, and at the same time indicates that winter is not really a bad time after all.
On the deck of the barge Joan made herself quite at home. She had been so shielded that she was really none the worse, except for outward tear and wear, of all she had gone through. She trotted hither and thither, watching the patient horse plodding along the tow-path, throwing bits of bread to the white-winged gulls which hovered in the wake of the boat, chattering to bargee, who had speedily become her willing captive, enchained in the meshes of her sunny hair, held fast by the innocent witchery of her long-lashed violet eyes.
Down in the bunker below lay Bambo, too worn out now to do ought but toss and tumble in the fever and restlessness which were hourly becoming more consuming and distressing, thankful to be at liberty just to let himself go, without fear or danger. For now he felt that the children were, beyond a doubt, safe out of reach of Thieving Joe, and he himself separated at last and for ever from all further connection with the Satellite Circus Company. Soon the little ones should be safe at home with their own people, and he, Bambo, homeless and friendless, should be free from future care concerning them—free to creep away somewhere, unnoticed and alone, to lie down and rest—sleep—suffer—or maybe die, if such were God's will for him.
Beside the dwarf's pallet Darby kept loving watch, dozing from time to time when Bambo seemed sleeping; again, rousing up to hang over him in distress when he babbled so queerly about Firgrove, his mother, Thieving Joe, Moll, and the bear. Then the raving would cease, and the dwarf would look up with intelligent, grateful eyes into the white, anxious face of the boy bending over him.