"What do you mean by going to China?" asked Bonny, wonderingly.
"Hark!" exclaimed the other, without answering this question. "Don't you hear something?"
"Nothing but the wind up aloft."
"Well, I do. I hear some sort of a moaning, and it sounds like a child."
"Maybe it's a bear or a wolf, or something of that kind," suggested Bonny, whose notions concerning wild animals were rather vague.
"Of course it may be," admitted Alaric; "but it sounds so human that we must go and find out, for if it is a child in distress we are bound to rescue it."
"Yes, I suppose we are; only if it proves to be a bear, I wonder who will rescue us."
Alaric had already set off in the direction of the moaning; and ere they had taken half a dozen steps Bonny also heard it plainly. Then they paused and shouted, hoping that if the sound came from a bear the animal would run away. As they could hear no evidences of a retreat, and as the moaning still continued, they again pushed on. It was now so dark that they could do little more than feel their way past trees, over logs, and through dense beds of ferns. All the while the sound by which they were guided grew more and more distinct, until it seemed to come from their very feet.
At this moment the moaning ceased, as though the sufferer were listening. Then it was succeeded by a plaintive cry that went straight to Alaric's heart. He could dimly see the outline of a great log directly before him. Stooping beside it and groping among the ferns, his hands came in contact with something soft and warm that he lifted carefully. It was a little child, who uttered a sharp cry of mingled pain and terror at being picked up by a stranger.
"Poor little thing!" exclaimed the boy. "I am afraid it is badly injured, and shouldn't be one bit surprised if it had broken a limb. I must try and find out so as not to hurt it unnecessarily."