'Range up alongside me,' George answered over his shoulder. 'I have a better plan than that.' His temper seemed to cool and his brain to grow clearer the greater the emergency.
'All right! Wait until I catch up to you,' said Terence. 'Then I will—Ah-h-h——'
Before he could finish what he was about to say, there broke from him that strange, solitary note of alarm, sharp at first, then long drawn and dying away in a curiously muffled shriek. Then silence, save for the occasional yell of a pursuer, and a faint rustling near by, as of branches coming gradually to rest after a puff of wind. But there was no wind.
'Terence!' George called softly. 'Terence! Where are you?' But he got no answer, and, full of terror, began to grope his way to the spot whence his comrade's voice had seemed to come.
'Terence!' he called again loudly, careless of his own safety, if only he might bring help to his friend. 'Terence! Speak to me. Oh, what has happened? Where can he be? There was no sound of a blow or—Ah-h-h——'
Just as with Terence, that one sharp, quavering cry—and then George's voice, too, died away, and a terrible silence fell upon the dark bush.
CHAPTER XIII
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN
Crash! George's heavy body broke through the tangle upon which he had stepped, and down he went through impenetrable darkness to the bottom of the hole into which he had fallen.
Breathless and bruised he picked himself up, relieved to find his bones unbroken. The mystery was dispelled now, for Terence must have preceded him; but a spasm of fear gripped his heart as his foot struck against the body of his friend.