“By-the-bye, Mr. Marx,” I remarked, “I fancied that I heard a cry a few min——”
“A cry! What sort of a cry?” he interrupted sharply, in an altered tone.
“Well, it sounded to me very much like the moan of a man in pain,” I explained, looking half fearfully around. “Of course, it might have been a hare, but it was wonderfully like a human voice. Listen! Can’t you hear something now?” I cried, laying my hand upon his arm.
We stood close together in silence, listening intently. A faint wind had sprung up, and was sighing mournfully through the trees, which were soaked and weighed down by the heavy rain. Drip, drip, drip. At every sigh of the breeze a little shower of rain-drops fell pattering on to the soddened leaves and the melancholy music was resumed.
It was altogether very depressing and I was palpably shivering.
“I can hear nothing,” he said, with chattering teeth. “It must have been your fancy, or a hare squealing, perhaps.”
“I suppose so,” I admitted, glad enough to be forced into this conclusion.
“I wouldn’t say anything about it at the lodge,” he remarked, preparing to depart. “Anderson is as nervous as a cat already.”
“All right, I won’t. Good night.”
“You’re not frightened, are you?” he asked. “If you like, I’ll walk down to the lodge with you.”