Hypatia could hardly repress a cry of joy.
"Then perhaps we may be saved, after all."
"If he comes in time; and God grant he may. He should be very close now. And I know Winiata will travel without rest or food till he strikes his trail. And yet I have a foreboding that one of us will die. So said the tohunga, whose words never failed yet. I cannot shake off the feeling."
"You have overworked yourself," said Hypatia. "You can have had little rest, food, or sleep since you left yesterday. It is the result of fatigue and anxiety."
"Anxiety has too often been my lot," said the girl, with a deep accent of sadness. "But fatigue I never felt yet. These wretches are spinning out their dance. They had better make the most of it. If all goes well, it is the last some of them will ever join in. Now, listen! Do you hear nothing?"
Hypatia bent her ear towards the forest, and listened with all the eagerness which the situation demanded. A faint murmur once, and once only, made itself audible.
"It is the sound of the breeze among the pines," said she at length.
"Listen again! Do you hear nothing?"
"Only a far-off sound like the rippling of the river. Once I thought I heard the trampling of feet; but it must be a mistake."