swollen by the storm full to its banks, and the willow trees dipped their half-drowned branches into its water. Wherever there was a gap between them, you could see it flow, red and muddy, with the stumps upon it. But the little figure ran on and on; never looking, never thinking; panting, panting! There, where the rocks were the thickest; there, where on the open space the moonlight shone; there, where the prickly pears were tangled, and the rocks cast shadows, on it ran; the little hands clinched, the little heart beating, the eyes fixed always ahead.     

       It was not far to run now. Only the narrow path between the high rocks and the river.     

       At last she came to the end of it, and stood for an instant. Before her lay the plain, and the red farmhouse, so near, that if persons had been walking there you might have seen them in the moonlight. She clasped her hands. “Yes, I will tell them, I will tell them!” she said; “I am almost there!” She ran forward again, then hesitated. She shaded her eyes from the moonlight, and looked. Between her and the farmhouse there were three figures moving over the low bushes.     

       In the sheeny moonlight you could see how they moved on, slowly and furtively; the short one, and the one in light clothes, and the one in dark.     

       “I cannot help them now!” she cried, and sank down on the ground, with her little hands clasped before her.     

       “Awake, awake!” said the farmer’s wife; “I hear a strange noise; something calling, calling, calling!”      

       The man rose, and went to the window.     

       “I hear it also,” he said; “surely some jackal’s at the sheep. I will load my gun and go and see.”      

       “It sounds to me like the cry of no jackal,” said the woman; and when he was gone she woke her daughter.     

       “Come, let us go and make a fire, I can sleep no more,” she said; “I have heard a strange thing tonight. Your father said it was a jackal’s cry, but no jackal cries so. It was a child’s voice, and it cried, ‘Master, master, wake!’”      

       The women looked at each other; then they went to the kitchen, and made a great fire; and they sang 

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