But, among all these sufferers, not one remembered seeing an Italian
organ-grinder with a little girl until, at the very last, a small
boy was found, who averred, that, on the morning after the disaster,
he had seen a sort of box, with a little creature chained to the top
of it, floating down the river; and that the little creature had
seemed very much scared, and kept laughing, and showing all his
teeth; and that they had gone on and out of sight. And that was all
he knew about it.
The river!-what use to question those dark and swollen waters? what
use to demand of them the bright form, that, it might be, slept
beneath them?-it might be, had been washed piecemeal to the ocean?
At the brink of that river, mournful and terrible as Styx, river of
the dead, ended, that night, the story of many a life; and why not
that of the child so strangely lost, so nearly recovered, and now,
perhaps, lost again forever?
"We have found her, I am afraid, Tom," said Mr. Legrange to his
cousin, as the detective closed his report, and his two hearers
looked at each other. "But," added the father, "keep on; keep every
engine at work; search everywhere; spend any amount of money that is
needful; leave no chance untried. Remember, the reward is always
ready.
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