"When you were a boy," exclaimed Berwick, in good-natured raillery. "How old do you consider yourself now, I should like to know?"
"Oh, I've lived in heartbeats, not in years," said Jim; "that makes me about a hundred years old."
"It strikes me that it takes a good deal to make your heart beat faster than usual," remarked the engineer; "you are a cool hand if there ever was one." This was a sincere tribute.
Then the two comrades began to work back under and through the hay, keeping close to the south wall, so that the hay showed no sign of having been disturbed, and in a short time they had burrowed their way clear through, until they reached the back wall. How comfortable and cozy it was in the warm, dry hay! Jim stretched his weary length out with a sigh of relief.
"Ah, John, isn't this great? After being through what we have," exclaimed Jim.
"It is fine," agreed Berwick, "to get into a safe, warm place like this when you have been in constant danger, as we have, and cold and wet besides. Here goes for a good sleep."
And the word was hardly out of his lips when he was sound asleep. Jim looked at his watch by means of a crack of light that came in between the logs, and saw that it was twenty minutes after six. And then, lulled by the sound of the waves at the base of the cliffs, he too sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.
He never thought of sleeping beyond a couple of hours, but he had not counted on the effect of his extreme fatigue, and the sudden cessation of the constant strain the two had been under for nearly eighteen hours. So hour after hour went by and still they slept in the cozy and soft dryness of the hay, that has no equal as a bed for the truly weary.
It was after two in the afternoon that something happened that roused them; otherwise they might have slept until night, and indeed it was almost as dusk as night, for the fog which had lifted in the morning closed in thicker than ever, so that in the homes and offices of the city the gas lamps and jets were burning.
Jim awoke with a start, utterly and absolutely bewildered. Where he was he could not guess; his mind was a confused daze of fragments of events that had happened during the night of adventure and excitement. Then he came to himself and remembered how they came in this strange place. His hand reached out and touched the foot of his sleeping comrade. But what had roused him? There had been something; of that he was certain. So he kept perfectly still, listening with the utmost intentness; then he started slightly, for there was repeated the noise that had roused him from his sleep. It was a low, terrible croon, like "o-o-h—o-o-h," repeated and repeated, and every once in a while its monotone was broken by a sharp shriek.