ear
a voice challenging us out of the darkness, and see the flash of a
musket or rifle as it sent a leaden messenger in our direction.

But all was still as death for a time, and then I stopped short with a
horrible feeling of dread; for from a short distance in front there
suddenly rang out the terrible cry as of one in mortal peril. Some one
was being killed I was sure; and to hear that sound in the pitchy
darkness, overwrought as I was by exertion and nervous excitement,
robbed me for the moment of the power to move or speak.

"What is it?" said Brace at last, as he tugged at my hand to get me
forward.

"That--that horrible cry!" I whispered.

"Bah!" he replied. "You ought by this time to know a jackal."

I hurried on at once with a sense of shame that was painful, for I felt
that Brace would despise me for my cowardice; but we spoke no more for
some time, and then he halted as if puzzled and confused.

"We ought to have reached the place before now," he whispered. "We must
have borne off too much to the right or left."

"What shall we do?" I said, with my lips close to his ear.

"Wait! Listen!"

We stood there with our feet sinking in the soft mud of what I fancied
must be a rice-ground; but, save our laboured breathing, there was not a
sound. It was a stillness like death.

"I'm a poor guide, Gil," he said at last; "but we must find it. Shall
we try to the right or the left?"

"Better wait a little longer," I replied. "We must hear some one speak
if the place is near."

"If only one of the horses would whinny," he muttered.

But the silence was unbroken, and, with the feeling upon me that we
might be going farther and farther from the place we sought, I followed
him again, still holding tightly by his hand.

For the next hour we struggled on, now wading through mud and water, now
feeling some kind of growth brushing against our legs; but when, at the
end of that time, we stopped short for a further consideration of our
position, it seemed to be hopeless in the extreme.

We listened, but there was not a sound, and at last Brace uttered an
impatient ejaculation.

"An utter failure!" he whispered.

"I'm afraid so," I replied. "We must have wandered off to left or
right. Had we not better go back and make a fresh start?"

"How?"

Before he had said that word bitterly, I felt how foolish my remark was,
and remained silent.

"My good Gil," he continued, "I wish we could; it is terribl