Perhaps Ralph had wandered unconsciously into this
black pool and been drowned. But that was too terrible; he would
not allow himself to think of it. He turned away, went back up the
chamber, and crossed over again to the air-way. Moving back a little
to search for foot-prints, he came to an old door-way and sat clown by
it to rest--yes, and to weep. He could no longer think of the torture
the child must have endured in his wanderings through the old mine and
keep the tears from his eyes. He almost hoped that death had long ago
come to the boy's relief.
"Oh, puir lad!" he sobbed, "puir, puir lad!"
Below him, in the darkness, he heard the drip of water from the roof.
Aside from that, the place was very, very still.
Then, for a moment, his heart stopped beating and he could not move.
He had heard a voice somewhere near him saying:--
"Good-night, Uncle Billy! If I wake first in the mornin', I'll call
you--good-night!"
It was what Ralph was used to saying when he went to bed at home. But
it was not Ralph's voice sounding through the darkness; it was only
the ghost of Ralph's voice.
In the next moment the man's strength returned to him; he seized his
lamp and leaped through the old door-way, and there at his feet lay
Ralph. The boy was living, breathing, talking.
Billy fell on his knees beside him and began to push the hair back
from his damp forehead, kissing it tenderly as he did so.
"Ralph," he said, "Ralph, lad, dinna ye see me? It's your Uncle Billy,
Ralph, your Uncle Billy.
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