So he waited another five minutes, and then he did not get up, but lay, not looking at the cloud of gnats which were dancing now just over his face as if the tip of his nose were the point from which they streamed upward in the shape of a plume, for Dick Winthorpe was fast asleep.
How long it was Dick did not know, only that it was a great nuisance that that bull would keep on making such a tremendous noise, bellowing and roaring round and round his bed till it annoyed him so much that he started up wide awake and stared.
It was very dark, not a star to be seen; but the bull was bellowing away in the most peculiar manner, seeming as if he were now high up in the air, and now with his muzzle close to the ground practising ventriloquism.
“Where am I?” said Dick aloud; and then, as the peculiar bellowing noise came apparently nearer, “Why, it’s the butterbump!”
Dick was right, it was the butterbump, as the fen people called the great brown bittern, which passed its days in the thickest parts of the bog, and during the darkness rose on high, to circle round and over the unfortunate frogs that were to form its supper, and utter its peculiar bellowing roar.
Dick had never heard it so closely before, and he was half startled by the weird cry. The fen, that had been so silent in the hot June sun, now seemed to be alive with peculiar whisperings and pipings. The frogs were whistling here, a low soft plaintive whistle, and croaking there, while from all around came splashings and quackings and strange cries that were startling in the extreme to one just awakened from the depths of sleep to find himself alone in the darkness, and puzzled by the question: How am I to get back?
No; return was impossible—quite impossible, and the knowledge was forced upon him more and more that he had to make up his mind to pass the night where he was, for to stir meant to go plunge into some bog, perhaps one so deep that his escape with life might be doubtful.
“How stupid I was!” mused Dick. “How hungry I am!” he said aloud. “What a tiresome job!”
He looked around, to see darkness closing him in, not a star visible; but the fen all alive with the sounds, which seemed to increase, for a bittern was answering the one overhead, and another at a greater distance forming himself into a second echo.
“I wonder how long it is since I lay down!” thought Dick.