"It is getting to be night," she said, "and I am hungry as a bear. I wish Fred would come."
"I wonder where he can be," Matthew said wearily; "this business of waiting doesn't strike me as a very opportune thing just now. If I had my way, I would be running like a rabbit, until we were back at Boston. And never will I leave that place again! We did wrong in not obeying our parents."
Agnes looked at him reprovingly. "That does not solve our problems now," she ventured. "I, too, wish we were back, but we are here now, and we must make the best of it. But oh, if only Fred were here."
"Let's go and look for him," Matthew broke in.
"No," Agnes replied, "we must stay and wait. They also serve who only stand and wait."
Yet she also became tired as the moments crept on slowly and wearily. Darkness covered the cave, and she could hardly see the opening any more.
"Matthew," she whispered as she walked forward, "you remain here with the guns. I will go and look for Fred. It is dark now!"
In a moment she was gone, while Matthew almost wept for anguish of heart. Yet he had learned to obey both Fred and Agnes, though he was older than they. There was something indescribably firm in their voices and conduct which he never could understand, and often he himself wondered what made him stand in awe of them.
Just now he bitterly reproved himself for not having followed Agnes.
"She is a girl and you are a boy," he scolded himself; "but she is a heroine, and you are a coward. How could you let her go alone!"