Part 72 (2/2)

He pushed on, and the sentinel remained at his hidden post, while, as if he found a certain pleasure in revisiting the spots familiar to him in the boyish adventures with his old companion, Fred wandered listlessly here and there, meeting sentry after sentry, posted so that the besieged should not have an opportunity of getting away, or sending a messenger in search of help.

”And all the time,” muttered Fred, ”I know how easily a messenger could be sent, and help obtained.”

He stopped short at last, with his head in a whirl, wondering which course he ought to pursue, as the thought occurred to him that he should be answerable for the injury to his own party if Scarlett did send for a.s.sistance, making use of the pa.s.sage as a means by which he could avoid the sentries.

”But he would not avoid the sentries, for they would catch the messenger all the same,” he cried; ”and I am driving myself half crazy about nothing, and--What's that?”

He stood listening, for it seemed to him that a low harsh moan had come from out of the dark shady woodland near where he stood.

He listened, but there was no further sound, and then he looked round, puzzled for the moment as to where he was. But he recognised certain features in the dense piece of forest directly after, and found that he had during his musings wandered in and in among the trees till he was in the old wilderness, close to the great fallen tree where they had made the discovery of the broken way into the hole.

He turned angrily away, for the thought of the secret pa.s.sage brought back his mental struggle, as to which course he ought to pursue, and flight being certainly the easiest, he was about to hurry off, when once more the low harsh moan smote his ear.

”Two boughs rubbing together,” he muttered, after listening for a repet.i.tion of the sound, recalling the while what peculiarly strange noises two fretting branches would make.

”But there's no wind,” he said to himself; and directly after there came the sharp chirp of a bird, and then the low moan.

It was so unmistakably a cry of pain, that Fred took a few steps forward among the dense bushes, and then looked around.

There was nothing visible, but he was not surprised, for he was close now to the hidden hole down which he had fallen when he made his jump, and crushed through part of the touchwood trunk, and everywhere there was a dense thicket of undergrowth, through which, after another pause, he forced his way.

Nothing to see--nothing to hear; and he paused again, listening intently, and bending forward in the direction of the hidden opening, as the thought struck him that the cry might come from there.

Still, there was no further sound, and feeling convinced that he had hit upon the true source of the noise, and with a s.h.i.+ver of dread running through him as a dozen terrible suggestions offered themselves in connection with the sound and with Scarlett, he was about to force his way to the hole and drag away some of the broken branches which they had heaped there, and which he could now see were intact, and with the ferns and brambles and ivy growing luxuriantly, when a fresh moan met his ear, evidently from quite another direction.

It was with a feeling of relief that he turned from the way to the pa.s.sage, and forcing his way on for some little distance, he paused again, and listened with almost a superst.i.tious dread, for the sounds heard were in the midst of the gloomy wilderness, where the foot of man rarely trod, and appealed strongly to the superst.i.tious part of the youth's nature.

In fact, after listening some time, and hearing nothing, the uncomfortable sensation increased, and he began to back away, when the sound was again heard--a harsh, wild, but very subdued cry from quite a different direction, thrilling the lad's nerves, and making him turn hastily to flee from the dark precincts.

For it was like no other sound which he had ever heard. No animal or bird could cry like that. The hedgehog, if shut up in a pit, would sometimes utter a wild strange noise, which, heard in the darkness, was startling as the shriek or hoot of an owl. But it was none of these, and giving way for the moment to ignorant superst.i.tion, Fred began to get out of the wilderness as fast as he could, till he stumbled over a briar stretched right across his way, fell heavily, and as he struggled up again, he heard the cry repeated.

”Oh, how I wish some one was here to knock me over!” he muttered angrily. ”What a miserable coward I am!”

And now, fully convinced that some unhappy wounded man had crawled into the thicket to die, he went sharply back to where he had seemed nearest to the sound, and began to search once more.

It was for some time in vain, and probably he would have had to give up what seemed to be a hopeless task, had he not suddenly seen a bramble strand feebly thrust aside, and the point of a rusty sword directed toward him.

He drew his own weapon, and beat the rusty blade away, hacking through a few bramble strands, and there, deep down in a tunnel of strands and boughs, was the ghastly blood-besmeared countenance of a man, with hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and a look of weakness that strongly resembled that which, to his sorrow, he had so often seen upon the field of battle.

The wretched man seemed to make an effort to raise his rusty sword again, but it fell from his grasp, and he lay staring wildly at his finder.

”Who are you? How came you here?” began Fred, involuntarily, though he felt that he knew; and then, with a cry of surprise and horror, he dropped upon his knees beside the wounded man. ”Nat, my poor fellow,”

he cried, ”is it you?”

The man looked at him wildly for a few moments, as if he were dreaming, before the light of recognition came into his sunken eyes.

”Master Fred!” he whispered. ”You? That's right. Put me out of my misery at once.”

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