I'se
warrant your Nurse never brought you this way when you were out
a-walking."
"No, never," said Duke, startled, and even Pamela left off sobbing to
stare up at him with her tearful blue eyes, as if fascinated by these
mysterious hints.
"Ah, I thought not," he said, nodding his head. "Well, stay where you
are, and make no sound whatsumnever, and no harm'll come to ye. But if
you stir or speak even above a whisper," and he lowered his own voice,
"there's no saying. There's beasts you never heard tell of in this
wood--worsest of all, snakes, that think nothing of twisting round a
child and off with it for their supper afore one could cry out. But if
you stop quite still they'll not find you out before I'm back with the
donkey. It's about their time o' day for sleeping just now, I'm
thinking," and with this crumb of consolation the cruel-hearted gipsy
turned on his heel.
Words would fail me to describe the terror of the two poor little
children: a cry of appeal to the pedlar to stay beside them, not to
leave them to the dreadful creatures he spoke of, rose to their lips,
but stopped there. For were they not almost as terrified of him as of
the snakes? Pamela forgot all about her wounded foot, though it was
growing stiff with pain, and the blood, which Duke's unskilful binding
had not succeeded in checking, was still flowing in a way that would
have alarmed more experienced eyes.
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