We listened, but there was not a sound, and at last Brace uttered an impatient ejaculation.
“An utter failure!” he whispered.
“I’m afraid so,” I replied. “We must have wandered off to left or right. Had we not better go back and make a fresh start?”
“How?”
Before he had said that word bitterly, I felt how foolish my remark was, and remained silent.
“My good Gil,” he continued, “I wish we could; it is terrible. I have not the most remote idea which way to turn, and the next thing will be that we shall be found hopelessly bogged at daybreak, and become prisoners, or—”
A shiver ran through me, for there was no need for him to finish his sentence; but there was a feeling of reaction directly.
“Not so bad as that,” I said. “We must find the place somehow. It can’t be so very far away.”
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
The crowing was so close to us that I gave quite a jump, and then stood fast, as from almost above our heads there was the rustle and beating of wings and the querulous cry of a hen, as if fowls were fidgeting somewhere upon a perch, no doubt disturbed by our being so near.