'Hark!' he cried, suddenly pausing in the hymn; 'they are striving to clear the working—I hear the sound of their picks! We are saved! we are saved!' he joyously shouted.
With the sense of hearing preternaturally sharpened, these poor men, who had given themselves up for lost, also listened; those who had lain down to die rising up and listening with every nerve acutely strained to catch the faintest sound. Yes, they could hear their deliverers bravely working to set them free.
Then arose as with one voice their glad song of deliverance,—
'Thou canst save, and Thou alone!'
Tenderly they bore him home to his mother, that brave, noble child, whose simple trust had sustained their failing hearts in that hour of trial and suffering.
But reaction had set in, and he was weak and fainting when they laid him in her arms, yet he feebly murmured, striving for her sake to appear still strong,—
'Oh, mother darling, I am so glad to be at home again! I thought I should never more see you, nor my Evening Primrose. But, mother, why is it still so dark?'
She glanced in terror at his soft blue eyes, which to her looked as clear as ever. But why was it that, though the morning light was streaming in through the open window, to him it still was dark?
She breathed not one word of her fear to him, though the icy dread chilled her to the heart, but, laying him gently down in his own cosy bed, Soothed him with loving caresses, bidding him—