The light was cut off from above.
‘Her’s all ’ollow inside,’ cried the boy. ‘I can’t reach un.’
‘Cut a stick an’ put un through.’
A pause, and presently a long bough came poking down, which I easily avoided. But—worse luck!—the boy’s quick ears heard me moving.
‘He’s here, vather. I heard un. Tell ee what. Us’ll smoke un out.’
Memory flashed back to the poachers and the suffocated pheasants. Now, indeed, I was lost. In helpless terror I heard them piling leaves and twigs below the tree, and then the click of a striking match.
Blue fumes began to eddy through a knot-hole, but the bed of rotten wood below me was so thick and damp that they passed over my head and I was still able to breathe.
I heard the man swearing, and then he called to his boy:
‘Zeke, fetch t’ chopper. Us ’ll have to cut un out.’
Soon there came a pounding on the outside of the trunk which reverberated through the hollow, jarring me horribly. The outer crust was of no great thickness, and could not resist their blows for very long.