As the party went further and further
into the woods, the struggles of the child grew fitful; soon he was
still, and at last--for even Care must needs have pity for his callow
estate--he was asleep, forgetting in slumber for a time all the horror
that he had seen and suffered.
But when he came to himself he was a shivering, whimpering bundle of
homesick grief. He wanted his mother--he would listen to naught but
assurances that they were going to her right away--right away! It was a
strange place wherein he found himself--all dark, save for flaring
torches. He could not understand his surroundings, and indeed he did not
try. He only rubbed his eyes with his fists and said again and again that
he wanted his mother. He was seated on a small stone pillar, a stalagmite
in a limestone cavern, where there were many such pillars and pendants of
like material hanging from the roof, all most dimly glimpsed in the
torch-light against an infinitude of blackness. The men who had brought
him hither, and others whom he had not heretofore seen, were busied about
a dismantled stone furnace, gathering up such poor belongings as had
escaped the wreckings of the revenue force.
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