plunge farther into the scrub.

In spite of a stern resolve not even to let himself doze, the tired
boy must have slept awhile, sitting with his back against a tree.
There was just a first glimmer of light penetrating the thick
foliage above when he opened his eyes with a sudden definite
feeling of something having roused him.

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 made his hair stand on
end and his blood run cold. He got up swiftly but softly, and
stood, still backed by the tree, staring into the gloom. The sound
seemed to come from what looked like a dense thicket not very far
to the right, 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, feeling most horribly shaky.

There was a long pause, and then the silence was once more broken
by a deep, heavy groan--something like a long sobbing sigh.

The boy was paralyzed with horror. Besides which, to have moved, to
have gone 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 himself to sit down
again; there is always a feeling of being 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 something or some one was suffering inexpressibly not
twenty yards away. The voice was like the voice of a man having a
nightmare, and trying to 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 a
muffled cry for help.

The light was coming at 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 might for
strength to face whatever it might be for at the thought of the
ordeal before him he could have turned and fled. He stood up again
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