Page:Dick Sands the Boy Captain.djvu/261

 A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY. 233 fatigue, but because the indefinable feeling of uneasiness, that had taken possession pf them ail, had entirely destroyed ail appetite. Gradually the night became very dark. The sky was covered with heavy storm-clouds, and on the western horizon flashes of summer lightning now and then glim- mered through the trees. The air was perfectly still ; not a leaf stirred, and the atmosphère seemed so charged with electricity as to be incapable of transmitting sound of any kind. Dicky himself, with Austin and Bat in attendance, remained on guard, ail of them eagerly straining both eye and ear to catch any light or sound that might disturb the silence and obscurity. Old Tom, with his head sunk upon his breast, sat motionless, as in a trance ; he was gloomily revolvîng the awakened memories of the past. Mrs. Weldon was engaged with her sîck child. Scarcely one of the party was really asleep, except indeed it mîght be Cousin Benedict, whose reasonîng faculties were not of an order to carry him forwards into any future contin- gencies. Midnight was still an hour in advance, when the dull air seemed filled with a deep and prolonged roar, mingled with a peculiar kind of vibration. Tom started to his feet. A fresh recollectîon of his early days had struck him. " A lion 1 a lion !" he shouted, In vain Dîck tried to repress him ; but he repeated, — "A lion! a lion!" Dick Sands seized his cutlass, and, unable any longer to control his wrath, he rushed to the spot where he had left Harris lying. The man was gone, and his horse with him ! AU the suspicions that had been so long pcnt up within Dick's mînd now shaped themselves into actual reality. A flood of light had broken in upon him. Now he was con- vinced, only too certainly, that it was not the coast of America at ail upon which the schooner had been cast ashore ! it was not Easter Island that had been sighted far