He shouted again, and felt more uneasy, for as his voice died away all seemed more silent than ever, and he drew in a long hissing breath as he gazed vainly in the direction from which the splashing had seemed to come.
For quite half an hour all was perfectly still, but he did not move, partly from an intense desire to be certain, partly, it must be confessed, from a feeling of dread which oppressed him.
Then there was a rustle and a splash from somewhere behind him, such a noise as a bird might make. Directly after there came from a distance the scuttering noise made by a duck dabbling its bill in the ooze, and this was followed by a low quawk uttered by some nocturnal bird, perhaps by one of the butterbumps whose hoarse booming cry had come so strangely in the earlier part of the night.
As if these were signals to indicate to the animal life of the fen that all was right, sound after sound arose such as he had heard before; but there was one so different that it filled Dick Winthorpe’s ears, and as he listened he seemed to see a man in a punt, who had been crouching down among the reeds, rising up softly, and silently lowering a pole into the water to thrust the boat onward from where it had lain.
Even if it had been light the reeds and undergrowth would have hindered him from seeing anything, and in that darkness the impossibility was emphasised the more strongly; but all the same the faint splash, the light rubbing of wood against wood as the pole seemed to touch the side of the boat, the soft dripping of water, and the silky brushing rustle of the boat among the reeds and withes, joined in painting a mental picture upon the listener’s brain till it seemed to Dick that he was seeing with his ears this man in his boat escaping furtively so as not to be heard.
Dick was about to shout again, but he felt that if he did there would be no answer, and his heart began to beat strangely.
It was not fear now, but from a sudden excitement consequent upon a line of thought which suggested itself.
“Why did not this man answer to his cry—this man who was so furtively stealing away? Was it from fear of him?”
Undoubtedly fear of being seen and known.
Dick absolutely panted now with excitement. All feeling of dread passed away, taking with it the chilly sensation of cold and damp.