Part 22 (2/2)

Very much on the alert, instantly he raised his head, and sat listening with held breath He was beginning to think he must have been mistaken, when there came a sound that ot up swiftly but softly, and stood, still backed by the tree, staring into the gloom The sound seemed to come froht, but as yet it was not light enough to distinguish objects from each other

”Is it some animal, or a native, or what can it be?” Eustace questioned, feelingpause, and then the silence was oncesobbing sigh

The boy was paralyzed with horror Besides which, to have one forward, would have been useless in this half light He could have done nothing, seen nothing There was nothing for it but to wait till daybreak He could not bring hi ready for anything when one is standing

There was another long interval, and then this awful sound came once more--slow, laboured, intensely painful There could be no doubt that so inexpressibly not twenty yards away The voice was like the voice of ato call some one to help him The third time the sound came Eustace almost fancied it contained a word--”Help”

Five times he heard it, and every time it was exactly the same in tone and duration Each time he became more persuaded that it was aat last Soon he would be able to venture forward and find out what horrible secret the thicket held

The boy sank down on his knees and prayed with all his ht be for at the thought of the ordeal before hiain as white as a sheet, but resolute, and ashamed of the temptation

”Who is there?” he demanded in a hoarse, shaky voice unlike his own

His throat was parched, his lips dry He had not spoken a word for two nights and a day; it was scarcely wonderful speech was difficult

There was no answer for a full ain, not as in answer to the question, but at its own regular interval

Following the curve of the thicket a little way, behind a thick group of trees Eustace came to a sudden standstill with a cry of disht in the thickest of the scrub, was the figure of a man, his bare head bowed down upon his breast so that his face was invisible, his ar down at his sides

It struck Eustace at once as strange that he should be standingthis terrible sound It would not have surprised the boy nearly sodown--indeed, that he had expected Bracing himself to the task, Eustace went closer

”I say,” he said in a loud voice, ”what's up?”

The n nor movement Could he be tied there to a stake? the boy wondered Was he deaf and blind?

”I say,” Eustace said, al down his own horror of the situation, he pressed a little closer, to find the man's shi+rt torn to shreds, his ar that looked like small cords

”It's the 'wait-a-bit' cane!” Eustace exclai entrapped by it himself

Here was an awful state of affairs A wretched wayfarer caught and held like a fly in a spider's web, and not a soul at hand to help

To go back to the natives was out of the question With their reputation for cruelty and hatred of white men it would be worse than useless to appeal to them What was to be done? What would Bob have done under the circuain, and bending low he strained to catch a gli too perilously deep into the thicket

”Bob,” whispered the boy, ”Bob, is it you? Oh, speak to me--is it you?”

Little fool that he had been not to think of it before But somehow these last hours of terror, centred only upon hience to everything else--even to the remembrance of Bob He was ht of personal danger fell away fro but the realization that thisof privation

Oh the folly of having waited for the light! But Eustace stayed for nothing more now--not even to look at the two sides of the question He dashed against the bushes like a littlehis way towards the imprisoned man

”Bob, Bob!” he said in a voice choked with sobs