"She has even begged alms so as to nourish her children."
A third told that, several months previously, the poor youngster had already come near drowning himself in a stable-yard pond—in three inches of water!
Everyone repeated:
"It was his destiny. He was to die so."
Waiting rendered them uneasy, anxious.
"The mother! The mother's coming!"
George, deeply affected, cried:
"Carry him into the shade, won't you? Or into a house, so that his mother will not see him naked on the sand in the broiling sun!"
The guardian objected obstinately:
"He mustn't be moved. Until the arrival of the Authorities, he mustn't be moved."