When finally he realised what it might signify he stood staring; a vague throb of hope stirred the thin blood in his sunken cheeks. But he dared not say that he hoped; he merely turned northward in silence and moved into the swale grass. And his slim comrade followed.
Half an hour later he waited for the girl to come up along side of him. "Yellow-hair," he said, "this is swale or marsh-grass we are following. And little wild creatures have made a runway through it… as though there were—a drinking-place—somewhere—"
He forced himself to look up at her—at her dry, blood-blackened lips:
"Lean on me," he whispered, and threw his arm around her.
And so, slowly, together, they came through the swale to a living spring.
A dead roe-deer lay there—stiffened into an indescribable attitude of agony where it had fallen writhing in the swale; and its terrible convulsions had torn up and flattened the grass and ferns around it.
And, as they gazed at this pitiable dead thing, something else stirred on the edge of the pool—a dark, slim bird, that strove to move at the water's edge, struggled feebly, then fell over and lay a crumpled mound of feathers.
"Oh God!" whispered the girl, "there are dead birds lying everywhere at the water's edge! And little furry creatures—dead—all dead at the water's edge!"
There was a flicker of brown wings: a bird alighted at the pool, peered fearlessly right and left, drank, bent its head to drink again, fell forward twitching and lay there beating the grass with feeble wings.
After a moment only one wing quivered. Then the little bird lay still.