“Give it up,” said the Guardian desperately. “We can find our way to shelter, without it.”
“What! Go home and tell Father that I lost—mislaid—a battery, our only other live battery.” The hapless wail of the traitor was in Pem’s voice now—traitor to precise laboratory training, where vigilance meant safety. “Not—oh! not if I stay here till I dr-rown,” miserably.
She was groping round upon her knees now, others with her, in the black wet, feeling amid vine and scrub.
“I do believe they’re passing it from one to the other, the dark bushes—playing hunt-the-slipper—”
“The host of paradise are with us!” cried one suddenly. “She’s found it.”
The hosts of paradise are always on the side of light—even a “spunky” flash light.
With heaven reinstated in sundry hearts, led by a triumphant torch-bearer, the barnstorming party set out, a shadowy horde, wrapped in ponchos for raincoats.
“The light went out in the farmhouse quite a while ago,” said the Guardian. “Perhaps we can get into the barn, find the stairs, the ladder—find our way up into the barn, without disturbing anybody—”
“Without rousing the old bear from his lair, who said we were beyond ‘God bless you!’” muttered Dorothy vindictively. “We’re not. The hosts of heaven are with us still. The door’s open.”
“And now for clover—dry clover—the hay above!” cried Pemrose, swinging her flash light. “Oh! come on, girls. The menagerie—that’s nothing!”