n them
now, and they will come in the spring or summer if they get them done."

"How will they know the way?" asked Firetop.

"I told them just how to follow the river and the coast, and where to
cross," said Hawk-Eye. "They can't help finding the island, and if they
find the island, they can't help finding us. I told them we were on the
side where the sun rises out of the water."

It had grown very dark as they talked. There was only firelight in the
cave, but just then Limberleg saw a bright streak on the edge of the
water toward the east.

"Look, Grannie, look," she cried, pointing to it. "We have discovered
the secret of the sun and the moon! They both sleep in the water!"

The children and Grannie and Hawk-Eye and Limberleg all watched together
until the white streak grew brighter and stretched in a silver path
across the water to the beach below. They saw the pale disk of the moon
slowly rise into the deep blue of the night sky, and the stars wink down
at them.

"I suppose no one else in the whole world knows the secret," said
Limberleg solemnly. "You see this is the end of the world. You can't
go any farther."

"Except in my boat," said Hawk-Eye.

"The spirits of the water have been good to us," said Limberleg. "We
will not tempt them too far. If there are more secrets, we will not try
to find them out."

"Some day," said Hawk-Eye, "someday I mean to go,"--but Limberleg would
not let him finish.

"No," she said, putting her hand over his mouth, "no, you are not going
any where at all, ever again! You are going to stay right here with us
and be happy."

POSTSCRIPT.

_L'envoi_.

_Long, long ago, when the Earth was young
And Time was not yet old,
Ere all the stars in the sky were hung,
Or the silver moon grown cold_;

_When the clouds that sail between the worlds
Were fanned with fluttering wings,
And over all the land there curled
The fronds of growing things_;

_When fishes swarmed in all the seas,
And on the wooded shore
There roamed among the forest trees
A million beasts or more_;

_Then in the early morn of Time,
Called from the formless clod,
Came Man, to start the weary climb
From wild beast up to God_,--

_Oh, bravely did he dare and do,
And bravely fight and die,
Or you to-day could not be you
And I could not be I_.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cave Twins, by Lucy Fitch Perkins

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