"And where's that road you told us about?" asked Copplestone. "The moor road?"
"Top o' the bank yonder—beyond the tower," said Spurge. "Runs round yonder corner o' this wood and goes right round it to High Nick, where we've cut across from. Hush now, all of you, gentlemen—I'm going to signal Jim."
Screwing up his mobile face into a strange contortion, Spurge emitted from his puckered lips a queer cry—a cry as of some trapped animal—so shrill and realistic that his hearers started.
"What on earth's that represent?" asked Gilling. "It's blood-curdling?"
"Hare, with a stoat's teeth in its neck," answered Spurge. "H'sh—I'll call him again."
No answer came to the first nor to the second summons—after a third, equally unproductive, Spurge looked at his companions with a scared face.
"That's a queer thing, guv'nors!" he muttered. "Can't believe as how our Jim 'ud ever desert a post. He promised me faithfully as how he'd stick here like grim death until I came back. I hope he ain't had a fit, nor aught o' that sort—he ain't a strong chap at the best o' times, and—"
"You'd better take a careful look round, Spurge," said Vickers.
"Here—shall I come with you?"
But Spurge waved a hand to them to stay where they were. He himself crept along the back of the hedge until he came to a point opposite the nearest angle of the tower. And suddenly he gave a great cry—human enough this time!—and the three young men rushing forward found him standing by the body of a roughly-clad man in whom Copplestone recognized the one-eyed odd-job man of the "Admiral's Arms."