"It is, indeed, an awful wind," said Darling, "and one does not care to hear it, though his own home be as firm as a rock."
They sat together, scarcely speaking, until a late hour; but as the night advanced, the storm raged yet more furiously.
"It seems as if the very spirit of mischief is abroad," remarked Grace.
"But as we can do no good by staying up," said her mother, "we had better retire to rest."
Grace, however, was strangely loth to do so; and when, at last, she went to her own room, she could not sleep. Even when she was sinking into a doze, a terrible gust of wind would beat against the wall, and make the girl's heart leap within her, and cause her to listen in breathless attention to the mighty battle that was raging without. So she lay for several hours; and even when at last she fell asleep, her slumbers were very disturbed, and her dreams most uneasy.
In the morning, before daylight dawned, something awoke her. She rose hastily in bed, with wide-opened eyes, that seemed to listen intently.
"What was it that awoke me, I wonder! It might have been the wind; and yet it seemed to me more than the wind. It must have been human cries, but cries uttered in the most awful distress, or they could not have been heard above the gale."
So she said to herself, as with white face, and trembling pulses, she listened, and scarcely dared to breathe.
"Perhaps, after all, I was dreaming," she thought, as for a few moments she did not hear the sound she waited for. "The wailings of the winds might have deceived me, though I should not have thought they could do so, since I am so used to hear them."
Again she listened; and presently she heard piercing, penetrating cries of those whose agony had become almost unbearable.