On the left side of the road tall trees, stripped of their leaves, stood swaying like skeletons in the wind. Just there her eyes had seen something dark, a black patch, blacker than the surrounding night.
What was it?
A strange sound issued from the darkness, a low, dull, deep, complaining sound breathed from some infernal throat! Was it a cry, a growl, a snarl?... She halted, shivering with fright, her ears humming, her heart contracted in the grip of an indescribable terror, doubting her senses, doubting the reality of the sound she had heard.
Bobinette stood motionless.
The wind whistling through the branches conveyed another sound to her senses. She heard a mocking voice, harsh, imperious, a menacing voice, a voice whose orders she had obeyed many a time and oft, a voice she had never heard without secret terror, the voice of her master—Vagualame!
"Go forward, you fool! Why do you halt?"
As though galvanised, Bobinette with a supreme effort of will obeyed. A few seconds and she was by the side of Vagualame, who had come to meet her.
"Did you hear?" she gasped.
"I heard the bellowing of the wind," laughed Vagualame: "I heard the sound of sleety rain, I heard the noise of trees writhing and creaking in the wind—nothing more!"
"Someone or something cried out!"