They reached the hole at length, and raising himself to his knees, the wind being somewhat less boisterous while the rain was falling, the old man clutched the heavily-weighted cradle in both arms, and attempted to force it into the haven of safety he had spent his strength in forming.  Alas! there was not room.  The cradle was wider across than he had calculated.  To take the child out and place it with the bedding in the hole would be leaving it to drown.  Should the expected deluge descend, the trench he had dug would but form a reservoir for water.  He seized the shovel, working it as well as he could without a handle, and attempted to break down and widen the edges.  Pushing, stamping, driving with his make-shift spade, now clutching at the edges with his fingers and loosening the stones, now forcing them in with his heel, he succeeded in working through the hard upper surface; then breathless, dizzy, spent, with hands that could scarce grasp the shovel, and stumbling feet that each moment threatened to fail him, he spaded out the softer earth below and scraped and tore at the sides, till the hole was wide enough to contain the cradle, and deep enough to ensure its safety.

The last shovelful was raised, and the old man was stooping down to lift the cradle in, when the wildest war-cry yet uttered by the raging elements rang round the mountain side; all the former blasts seemed to have been but forerunners or skirmishers heralding the approach of the elemental forces; but now with awful ferocity and determination advanced the very centre of the fiendish host; while the horns were blown from mountain to mountain, announcing utter destruction to whatsoever should venture to obstruct the path of the army of the winds.  In the shrieking solitude it seemed as if chaos and the end of the world were come.  The poor old man crouched down, keeping his body between the gale and the baby’s cradle, while the last remaining wall of the cottage fell flat before his eyes.  But he felt himself being urged slowly but surely away from the refuge of the trench, downwards, downwards.  The cradle, in spite of its iron ballast, was just overturning, when, with the strength of despair, he threw his body across it, digging his feet into the ground, and once more knotted the loose end of rope around his waist.  The downward slip was stayed.  Pushing the cradle with knees and arms, clutching the soil with hands and feet, he crept with his precious charge nearer and nearer the widened hole.  Once over the edge the baby would be safe.  The windy fiend seemed to be pursuing him with vindictive hate.  It shrieked and tore around that bare strip of mountain side, as though the whole purpose of its fury was to destroy the old man and the babe.  With a superhuman effort he grasped the cradle in both arms and lifted it in, then fell senseless across the opening.

Gradually the demon horns ceased to blow, the great guns died into silence, and the army of the air dispersed.  The rain fell in torrents, but the old man never moved.