The two left behind stood for a moment gazing after him in terrified dismay. While he was with them his scorn of their fears, and his practical explanation of the dread sound, had acted like a stimulant; but now that they were left alone in the darkness they gave way to their worst apprehensions. He was gone! Gone straight to his doom, at the call of that luring voice, as so many before him had gone! And no one ever came back! Davy sank to the ground in a sobbing heap. Tim, more inured to disaster, stood silent, his small face white and fear-stricken. Suddenly he flung himself upon his companion and clutched him by the hair. "Le's tell the folks! They'll save him! Le's tell daddy an' Spectacle John an' John McIntyre! They'll come an' bring him back!" He was already tearing up the road in the direction of the village, and all his languor put to flight by his fears, Davy came flying after him. In an incredibly short time they burst upon the Cameron milkstand, gasping out the appalling news that the banshee had got the doctor, and he was being murdered in the Drowned Lands! CHAPTER XVII THE DAWN Then in the darkness came a voice that said, "As thy heart bleedeth so My heart hath bled; As I have need of thee Thou needest me." --FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT. All evening John McIntyre had been sitting alone in the doorway. He was to resume work in the mill to-morrow, and as it was his last night at home, he had half expected his boy to spend it with him. But Tim had not come, and as he sat waiting, John McIntyre had picked up the Bible. It was the first time he had opened it of his own accord, and he had intended merely to glance into it to pass the time. But he had read on and on, till now the light had faded from the evening skies, and the bare phantom trees of the Drowned Lands had vanished in the night. The whip-poor-will that all evening had been mourning on the hillside, and the loon that had called across the water, were hushed. The faint stars looked down on the silent blackness of the woods and the gray mists of the water beyond. But in those mists the lonely man at the doorway could discern a picture--a scene the Book had just now revealed to him. It was a weary group of Galilean fishermen approaching the shore, after a night of fruitless toil, while on the sands, shrouded in mists, stood One waiting for them in the dawn. One man in the little boat, straining his eyes to discern that mysterious Figure, suddenly felt his heart awake. He uttered in a thrilling whisper, "_It is the Lord_!" And without waiting for a word of reply, Peter, the disciple, who had so lately denied that One with curses, flung himself headlong into the sea and swam straight to Him.