“It is horrible,” said Bevis.
“There are reeds and sedges everywhere,” said Mark. “It may be anywhere.”
“It’s not safe to move.”
“Especially as Pan’s afraid and won’t warn us. If the thing had seen us bathing; It could not, or else—ah!”
“They tear so,” said Bevis. “It’s not the wound so much as the tearing.”
“Like bramble hooks,” said Mark. The curved hooks of brambles and briars inflict lacerated hurts worse than the spikes of thorns. Flesh that is torn cannot heal like that which is incised. “O! stop! panthers get in trees, don’t they? It may have been up in that oak that day!”
“In the ivy: we looked!”
“But the ivy is thick and we might not have seen! It might have jumped down on us.”
“So it might any minute in the wood.”
“Then we can’t go in the wood.”