He listened, and in the stillness of the wilderness he could have heard any one breathing, if he had been close at hand; but all was perfectly still, until, high up in a neighbouring tree, a greenfinch uttered its mournful little harsh note, which sounded like the utterance of the word wheeze.
“Surely he hasn’t hurt himself,” muttered Scarlett; and then aloud, as an uncomfortable sensation came over him—“Here, Fred! Fred! lad, where are you? Why don’t you speak?”
“As if I don’t know where he is,” muttered Scarlett again, now growing thoroughly alarmed. “He must have slipped and hurt his back.—All right; I’m coming,” he cried. “With you directly, as soon as I can get through this horrible tangle.—That’s better. Now then, what’s the matter? Fred, where are you? I say, do call out, or something. I don’t like it. Fred, lad, are you hurt?”
And all this time he was forcing his way onward, the brambles tearing and the old oak wood crackling. The greenfinch uttered its mournful wheeze once more, and fled in alarm as Scarlett broke down a good-sized branch which barred his way, the rotten dry wood snapping with a sharp report; and then, panting and hot after his heavy labour to get through so short a space, he forced himself to the place where Fred had landed, and, to his utter astonishment, found that on his side the whole of the trunk was gone, merely leaving the shell-like portion which had impeded him before, while below the crumbled tree-trunk was a great gap.
For a few moments he stood there aghast. Then, recovering his presence of mind, he pushed aside more of the growth which impeded him, and looked down into a narrow pit which was choked with broken wood and ferns.
“Fred!” he shouted; but there was no reply. There, however, beneath him, he could see his companion’s head and shoulders, with eyes closed, or seeming to be in the dim light, and only about five feet below where he stood.
Without a moment’s hesitation, but trembling the while for fear that this might be some terribly deep pit into which his companion might fall if once the broken boughs which supported him gave way, Scarlett tried bough after bough of the old oak to find one upon which he could depend; but they all crackled in a way that threatened snapping if he trusted one; so, reaching back, he got hold of a stout hazel which seemed to be a dozen or fourteen feet high, dragged it down, and holding it by twisting his hand among the twigs at the top, he began to descend.
At every movement the earth crumbled, and the bed of rotten wood supporting Fred, as he lay back with his face to the light, shook so that at any moment Scarlett expected to see it descend into the profound abyss below. But in spite of this, as he climbed down the short distance, he realised the state of affairs—that in its fall the oak had crushed in the masonry arch over some old well-like place, leaving this terrible hole securely covered till the wood had rotted away; and that now it had been Fred’s misfortune to leap upon the spot, go through, and be held up by the broken wood, which formed a kind of rough scaffold a short distance below.
Should he run back for help?
No; he could not leave Fred like that. And yet when he reached him he was afraid that the slightest touch would send him down; and now he realised how fortunate it was that Fred had been hurt, and had remained insensible, for if he had struggled, the possibility was that he must have gone through at once.