all their terrible pilgrimage. There they are!—The one moves not. The other keeps vigil, feebly giving utterance, at intervals, to a low suffocating spasm from a throat dried with hunger. Once more she leans upon her elbow, to look on the face of the little one, for whom as a mother she has cared. With love strong as death, she comforts herself that her sister slumbers calmly, because the stroke of the destroyer has silenced her sobbings.
Ah! why come ye not hither, torches that gleam through the wilderness, and men who shout to each other? why come ye not this way? See! they plunge into morasses, they cut their path through tangled thickets, they ford waters, they ascend mountains, they explore forests—but the lost are not found!
The third and fourth nights come and depart. Still the woods are filled with eager searchers. Sympathy has gathered them from remote settlements. Every log-cabin sends forth what it can spare for this work of pity and of sorrow. They cross each other s track. Incessantly they interrogate and reply, but in vain. The lost are not found!
In her mournful dwelling, the mother sat motionless. Her infant was upon her lap. The strong duty to succor its helplessness, grappled with the might of grief, and prevailed. Her eyes were riveted upon its brow. No sound passed her white lips. Pitying women, from distant habitations, gathered around and wept for her. They even essayed some words of consolation. But she answered nothing. She looked not toward them. She had no ear for human voices. In her soul was the perpetual cry of the lost. Nothing overpowered it, but the wail of her living babe. She ministered to its necessities, and that Heaven-inspired impulse saved her. She had no longer any hope for those who had wandered away. Horrid images were in her fancy—the ravening beast—black pits of stagnant water—birds of fierce beak—venomous, coiling snakes. She bowed herself down to them, and travailed as in the birth-hour, fearfully, and in silence. But the hapless babe on her bosom, touched an electric chord, and saved her from despair. Maternal love, with its pillar of cloud and of flame, guided her through the desert, that she perished not.
Sunday came, and the search was unabated. It seemed only
