As they proceeded, the howls of the dogs became more
shrill and plaintive. The vultures and buzzards settled so low as to
flap the bushes with their heavy wings, and the wind came hoarsely
sweeping along the naked prairie, as if the spirits of the air had
also descended to witness the approaching development.
There was a breathless moment, when the blood of the undaunted Esther
flowed backward to her heart, as she saw her sons push aside the
matted branches of the thicket and bury themselves in its labyrinth. A
deep and solemn pause succeeded. Then arose two loud and piercing
cries, in quick succession, which were followed by a quiet, still more
awful and appalling.
"Come back, come back, my children!" cried the woman, the feelings of
a mother getting the ascendency.
But her voice was hushed, and every faculty seemed frozen with horror,
as at that instant the bushes once more parted, and the two
adventurers re-appeared, pale, and nearly insensible themselves, and
laid at her feet the stiff and motionless body of the lost Asa, with
the marks of a violent death but too plainly stamped on every pallid
lineament.
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