"No. Let us continue our journey until we have completed the circuit. We may make another discovery yet. Come along; fortune favours the brave."
They had scarcely crept another hundred yards, however, when a rustling in the leaves, accompanied by a snort, revealed the presence of another wild boar, which had evidently scented their presence.
"Confound the pig!" muttered Sharpe, who was afraid the sounds might lead to their premature discovery. But Keane thought otherwise, for, to his quick mind and instructive genius, this trifling event seemed providential.
"The pig!" he whispered, pointing to the spot whence came the occasional snorts of the angry, disturbed creature.
"What of it?" queried Sharpe.
"Let's get to the other side of the beast and drive it against the wires."
"And roast the brute alive for the benefit of their breakfast, I suppose."
Keane laughed silently, and wondered how far the conspirators used this live wire to keep themselves supplied with food. He knew, however, that a wild boar on the live wires would soon bring out the inmates of that mysterious house in the woods, and would sufficiently distract their attention to give the airmen their opportunity.
The next moment, having made a sufficiently extensive circuit, so as to get the wild boar between them and the wires, they began closing in on the beast, an operation not devoid of peril, should the boar decide to attack them. Fortune favoured them, however. The angry beast, noting the approach of some unseen enemy, by the movements of the tangled undergrowth, half frightened and half infuriated, made off in the direction of the clearing, uttering further snorts. The next moment he had touched the first of those deadly wires, and, with a wild scream which rang through the forest, he leapt into the air, then fell back quivering but dead across that fatal grill.
"Back--back for your life!" hissed Keane, as he made haste back to the spot where they had sheltered, close to the camouflaged hangar.