my child, how hast thou fulfilled
thy trust? Give me back the boy well, sound, alive--alive--or earth
and heaven shall avenge me!"

The agonized shriek of Catharine was answered by the faint--the very
faint--voice of a child.

On this day it had become evident to Pearson, to his aged guest and to
Dorothy that Ilbrahim's brief and troubled pilgrimage drew near its
close. The two former would willingly have remained by him to make use
of the prayers and pious discourses which they deemed appropriate to
the time, and which, if they be impotent as to the departing
traveller's reception in the world whither he goes, may at least
sustain him in bidding adieu to earth. But, though Ilbrahim uttered no
complaint, he was disturbed by the faces that looked upon him; so that
Dorothy's entreaties and their own conviction that the child's feet
might tread heaven's pavement and not soil it had induced the two
Quakers to remove. Ilbrahim then closed his eyes and grew calm, and,
except for now and then a kind and low word to his nurse, might have
been thought to slumber. As nightfall came on, however, and the storm
began to rise, something seemed to trouble the repose of the boy's
mind and to render his sense of hearing active and acute. If a passing
wind lingered to shake the casement, he strove to turn his head toward
it; if the door jarred to and fro upon its hinges, he looked long and
anxiously thitherward; if the heavy voice of the old man as he read
the Scriptures rose but a little higher, the child almost held his
dying-breath to listen; if a snowdrift swept by the cottage with a
sound like the trailing of a garment, Ilbrahim seemed to watch that
some visitant should enter. But after a little time he relinquished
whatever secret hope had agitated him and with one low complaining
whisper turned his cheek upon the pillow. He then addressed Dorothy
with his usual sweetness and besought her to draw near him; she did
so, and Ilbrahim took her hand in both of his, grasping it with a
gentle pressure, as if to assure himself that he retained it. At
intervals, and without disturbing the repose of his countenance, a
very faint trembling passed over him from head to foot, as if a mild
but somewhat cool wind had breathed upon him and made him shiver.

As the boy thus led her by the hand in his quiet progress over the
borders of eternity, Dorothy almost imagined that she could discern
the near though dim delightfulness of the home he was