We Began To Understand The Sufferings Of The Babes In The
Wood.
Just when we had given up all hope - yes, I know that is always the time
that things do happen in novels and tales; but I can't help it.
I
resolved, when I began to write this book, that I would be strictly
truthful in all things; and so I will be, even if I have to employ
hackneyed phrases for the purpose.
It WAS just when we had given up all hope, and I must therefore say so.
Just when we had given up all hope, then, I suddenly caught sight, a
little way below us, of a strange, weird sort of glimmer flickering among
the trees on the opposite bank. For an instant I thought of ghosts: it
was such a shadowy, mysterious light. The next moment it flashed across
me that it was our boat, and I sent up such a yell across the water that
made the night seem to shake in its bed.
We waited breathless for a minute, and then - oh! divinest music of the
darkness! - we heard the answering bark of Montmorency. We shouted back
loud enough to wake the Seven Sleepers - I never could understand myself
why it should take more noise to wake seven sleepers than one - and,
after what seemed an hour, but what was really, I suppose, about five
minutes, we saw the lighted boat creeping slowly over the blackness, and
heard Harris's sleepy voice asking where we were.
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