Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/228

 muffled cries came to them from across the lagoon. They had half believed that they were on a wild-goose chase, but those unearthly cries brought the sweat to their foreheads and deadly certainty of danger to their hearts. They could see nothing beyond the race course but the topaz glint of the water between the willows that fringed the lagoon.

All other noises were now drowned by a wild clamour among the crows. They rose out of the pine wood and swept like a tumultuous cloud above the lagoon. Flying close together, fanning each other with their heavy wings, uttering cries of fear and rage, they cast their black shadow on the limpid mirror below.

Delight saw them, as, bruised and drenched, not certain whether it were not all a horrible nightmare, she raised her terrified eyes to the sky. Above the drumming in her ears, she heard their cries. Jimmy's crows were calling, rowdy, noisy, faithful crows:

"Caw! Caw! They've got her—Jimmy's girl—Jimmy's pretty girl—Jim's Delight. Delight! Delight! 'Light! Give us 'Light! Give us 'Light!"

Mayberry, almost fainting, cursed the birds for their noise. If it were not for them he might know just which opening to head for. As it was they bewildered him till he felt that when his feet were once on the race course he might have no more wit left than to run there in a half-mile circle till he dropped. . ..

Kirke was the first to crash through the undergrowth to the water's edge. His small eyes screwed into two points of light, he peered across. He saw the crowd of women on the opposite shore, Mrs. Jessop in the foreground. She stood up to her waist in water, clutching in her hands something—someone that hung limply like a doll.