I hurried on at once with a sense of shame that was painful, for I felt that Brace would despise me for my cowardice; but we spoke no more for some time, and then he halted as if puzzled and confused.
“We ought to have reached the place before now,” he whispered. “We must have borne off too much to the right or left.”
“What shall we do?” I said, with my lips close to his ear.
“Wait! Listen!”
We stood there with our feet sinking in the soft mud of what I fancied must be a rice-ground; but, save our laboured breathing, there was not a sound. It was a stillness like death.
“I’m a poor guide, Gil,” he said at last; “but we must find it. Shall we try to the right or the left?”
“Better wait a little longer,” I replied. “We must hear some one speak if the place is near.”
“If only one of the horses would whinny,” he muttered.
But the silence was unbroken, and, with the feeling upon me that we might be going farther and farther from the place we sought, I followed him again, still holding tightly by his hand.
For the next hour we struggled on, now wading through mud and water, now feeling some kind of growth brushing against our legs; but when, at the end of that time, we stopped short for a further consideration of our position, it seemed to be hopeless in the extreme.