"Is that your child?" said one of the officers.
"Oh, yes—yes," said the young mother, and hastening into the cottage, she placed a chair by the side of the cot, and began to rock it to and fro, singing while she did so, to lull the child to sleep.
"She will keep her word," thought Todd. "I feel confident that she will keep her word, now, with me."
"You look all round the garden, while I take a peep about the house," said the principal officer.
"Oh, I am lost!" moaned Todd. "I am surely lost now! If the house should be searched well, so obvious a place of concealment as a cupboard will not escape them. All is lost now, indeed."
He almost gave up all thought, now, of keeping life or liberty, and he waited only for the fatal moment when the officers should approach and place their hands upon that cupboard door to open it. The child still cried, and the mother sang to it.
"'Sleep, sleep, little baby—
Oh, sleep all the day;
The sunshine is hiding,
The birds fly away.