But the report was succeeded by neither signal nor answer of any sort.

For a moment, the whole party stood in suspense, awaiting the result, and then a simultaneous impulse caused the whole to let off their pieces at the same instant, producing a noise which might not fail to reach the ears of all within so short a distance.
"Ah! there they come at last!" cried Abiram, who was usually among the first to seize on any circumstance which promised relief from disagreeable apprehensions.
"It is a petticoat fluttering on the line," said Esther; "I put it there myself." "You ar' right; but now she comes; the jade has been taking her comfort in the tent!" "It is not so," said Ishmael, whose usually inflexible features were beginning to manifest the uneasiness he felt.

"It is the tent itself blowing about loosely in the wind.

They have loosened the bottom, like silly children as they ar', and unless care is had, the whole will come down!" The words were scarcely uttered before a rushing blast of wind swept by the spot where they stood, raising the dust in little eddies, in its progress; and then, as if guided by a master hand, it quitted the earth, and mounted to the precise spot on which all eyes were just then riveted.

The loosened linen felt its influence and tottered; but regained its poise, and, for a moment, it became tranquil.