As it did so, the sun slowly sank behind the western bluffs; and though the boy did not look up from the wet sand on which he had flung himself, he knew instinctively that another night, with its darkness, its chill, and its nameless terrors, was upon him.
He was so numbed by this latest disaster that he had not the heart even to seek a place of shelter for the night.

What good would anything that he could find or construct do him?
He had neither matches nor food, dry clothing nor bedding.

What did it matter, though?
He would probably be dead before the sun rose again, anyway.

So the poor lad nursed his misery, and might, in truth, have lain on those wet sands until he perished, so despairing was he, when all at once he was aroused by a sound so strange to hear in that place that, though he raised his head to listen, he thought he must be dreaming.

He wasn't, though, for there came again to his ears, as distinct as anything ever heard in his life, a merry peal of clear girlish laughter.