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.