He was picturing it all in that solemn silence; the very scene rose before him, but it was swept away directly, and he was gazing in the agony-drawn face of his mother, when he heard a faint sob, and turned as Rifle dropped upon his knees by his side, laid his clasped hands upon his brother’s shoulder, and bent down his head.
But poor orphan Tim, who looked upon his cousins more as brothers than aught else, had been as wakeful as they. It had been a mutual deception; each had pretended that he was asleep, so as not to let the others know how he suffered, and many seconds had not elapsed before he too was kneeling by Norman’s side.
And there they knelt for a long space, before Norman began repeating aloud the old, old prayer, followed by the others, till he came to the words, “And deliver us from—”
There he broke down, and the prayer was finished in a husky voice by Tim alone.
A few minutes after they were lying once more in the shelter of the sheet of canvas, and the next thing that happened was their starting up into wakefulness with the sky one glow of gold and orange, and the black face of Tam o’ Shanter peering in at them with a grin upon his countenance, as he cried:
“Now, Marmi boys, piggi go jump up. Mine baal sore now. Go along fine way back.”
For a marvellous change seemed to have come over the black. He had been sleeping heavily for sixteen hours, and the breakfast he ate was something like that to which they had been accustomed, in spite of the fact that the flour was getting excessively low.
But it was as if a black cloud had rolled away from them during the night, and the bright sun of hope was shining warmly into their hearts.
All at once, to their great astonishment, Tam leaped up, flourished his nulla-nulla, and shouted:
“Mine want big boomer here. Makum sore along plenty like Tam o’ Shanter.”