For two whole days they searched unceasingly, exploring every shaft they came near,—the two miners having brought ropes, by which one of them was frequently lowered down, to search for their young friend in the bowels of the earth. Houses were entered and searched thoroughly, and all manner of questions asked of the inmates, very much to the astonishment and terror of some of them, but all to no purpose. Yet on they went, searching still, and searching everywhere. At length, towards the end of the third day, they arrived at a solitary spot, which attracted the attention of Mr. Morley. It was a house surrounded by high walls on every side.
"This," he exclaimed, "appears to answer the description given in that letter, better than any place we have seen yet! Courage, my comrades! we have found the spot at last."
As they approached the outer door of the garden, they saw in a ditch by the side of the wall, the carcase of a dead horse, on which the crows were feeding so ravenously that they did not perceive the intruders until they were almost close upon them, when they rose in a cloud that almost darkened the sky, making a discordant noise, and flapping the air with their wings, which was heard distinctly until they settled down again in a neighbouring field to wait a favourable opportunity to return again to the feast from which they had been so suddenly dispersed.
Here was the spot, then, wherein, if not Frederick Morley, they felt pretty certain his loved Alrina was confined; and it should go hard, they said, if a clear discharge was not made of all prisoners inside, whoever or whatever they might be. Lieut. Fowler and Mr. Morley were armed with a brace of pistols each, while Capt. Trenow and his son had only their stout cudgels to depend upon.
"Never mind," said Capt. Trenow; "a stout cudgel and a strong arm ha' beat a good many men afore now, and may again;—I arn't afeard; art thee, 'Siah boy?"
"No fie," said Josiah, flourishing his cudgel round his head, and grinding his teeth with energetic determination; "I'll scat them all abroad 'pon the planchen' ef I do come nigh them." And down came the end of the cudgel on a log of wood near him, with such a crash, that the crows were frightened once more, and rose like a rushing mighty wind, and settled down again one field further off.
Whether it was the noise of the crows, or the sound of Josiah's cudgel on the log of wood, or a sudden impulse of female curiosity to see who the strangers were, the door was opened from the inside just at that moment, and a female head peeped out, and as suddenly Josiah sprang at the door, pushing it wide open, and asked as deliberately as he could under the circumstances, "ef the lady wanted to buy a hoss?"
"A hoss!" said the woman, taken quite by surprise; "no,—how ded 'ee think so?"
"Why, the crows are getten' fat upon the hoss you lost last week, and so I thoft you'd be wanten' another," replied Josiah, with the greatest coolness.