"Are—are you goin' after her?" whispered Davy, horror-stricken.
"Of course! Look here! I thought you two fellows had a little more snap in you than to get scared at a man calling for help."
"I'll go with you an' pull him out," cried Tim, stung into valor by this crushing remark.
"Me, too!" cried Davy with a gulp. It was awful to contemplate following that ghostly voice away into the death trap of the Drowned Lands; but it was worse to remain there alone.
"No; you'd likely get mired, and cause more trouble. Get back to the road, quick, and wait for me there. If I need your help, I'll call."
The cry arose again, this time fainter and more agonized. "Hurry!" cried the young man. "Here, Tim! Take this, and don't lose it again, for the life of you!"
He handed the boy the wedding dress, and hurried them forward until they were beyond the perilous area of the swamp. There he left them, and turning, plunged back into the woods.
Through the dense tangle, leaping from moss-clump to fallen log, he forced his way, the lantern, like a swaying will-o'-the-wisp, now casting a red splash on the surface of a pool, now leaving it in blackness, to light up a new circle of vine and stump and riotous undergrowth.
The two left behind stood for a moment gazing after him in terrified dismay. While he was with them his scorn of their fears, and his practical explanation of the dread sound, had acted like a stimulant; but now that they were left alone in the darkness they gave way to their worst apprehensions. He was gone! Gone straight to his doom, at the call of that luring voice, as so many before him had gone! And no one ever came back! Davy sank to the ground in a sobbing heap. Tim, more inured to disaster, stood silent, his small face white and fear-stricken.
Suddenly he flung himself upon his companion and clutched him by the hair. "Le's tell the folks! They'll save him! Le's tell daddy an' Spectacle John an' John McIntyre! They'll come an' bring him back!" He was already tearing up the road in the direction of the village, and all his languor put to flight by his fears, Davy came flying after him. In an incredibly short time they burst upon the Cameron milkstand, gasping out the appalling news that the banshee had got the doctor, and he was being murdered in the Drowned Lands!