When morning dawned and the camp awakened there was some little confusion, for Mac Cann was not in the place where he had slept and they could not imagine where he had gone to.
Mary discussed his disappearance in all kinds of terms, Caeltia alone, with a downcast air, refusing to speak of it. They waited during hours for him, but he did not return, and at noon they decided to wait no longer but to go on their journey leaving him to catch on them if he was behind or hoping to gain on him if he was in advance, for their route was marked.
The angels did seem a trifle lost in his absence, and they looked with some dubiety at Mary when she took charge of their journey and of the daily provision of their food.
Food had to be gotten, and she had to discover it not alone for herself but for these other mouths. It was the first time she had been alone and, although her brows and lips were steady, her heart beat terror through her body.
For she had to do two things which she had never done and had never surmised really had to be done. She had to think, and she had to follow her thought by doing the thing she thought of. Which of these two were the more terrible she did not know, but there was no difficulty as to which she must do first, the simple orderliness of logic clamoured that she must think before she could do anything, and, so, her brain set to the painful weaving of webs too flimsy at first for any usage; but on this day she discovered where her head lay and how to use it without any assistance. She had memory to work with also, the recollection of her father's activities, and memory is knowledge; a well-packed head and energy—that is the baggage for life, it is the baggage for eternity.
She moved to the head of the ass and pulled his ear to advance. Caeltia and Finaun trod beside and they went forward. Behind came Art sniffing with the hungriest of nostrils on the sunny air, for it was five hours since they had eaten and more than three hours' abstinence was painful to him.
CHAPTER XXIX
She did get food. She nourished her three children sumptuously, but she made them help her to get it.