died away. Again
and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident,
wild, and menacing. The baronet caught my sleeve and his face
glimmered white through the darkness.

"My God, what's that, Watson?"

"I don't know. It's a sound they have on the moor. I heard it
once before."

It died away, and an absolute silence closed in upon us. We stood
straining our ears, but nothing came.

"Watson," said the baronet, "it was the cry of a hound."

My blood ran cold in my veins, for there was a break in his voice
which told of the sudden horror which had seized him.

"What do they call this sound?" he asked.

"Who?"

"The folk on the country-side."

"Oh, they are ignorant people. Why should you mind what they call
it?"

"Tell me, Watson. What do they say of it?"

I hesitated but could not escape the question.

"They say it is the cry of the Hound of the Baskervilles."

He groaned and was silent for a few moments.

"A hound it was," he said, at last, "but it seemed to come from
miles away, over yonder, I think."

"It was hard to say whence it came."

"It rose and fell with the wind. Isn't that the direction of the
great Grimpen Mire?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, it was up there. Come now, Watson, didn't you think
yourself that it was the cry of a hound? I am not a child. You
need not fear to speak the truth."

"Stapleton was with me when I heard it last. He said that it
might be the calling of a strange bird."

"No, no, it was a hound. My God, can there be some truth in all
these stories? Is it possible that I am really in danger from so
dark a cause? You don't believe it, do you, Watson?"

"No, no."

"And yet it was one thing to laugh about it in London, and it is
another to stand out here in the darkness of the moor and to hear
such a cry as that. And my uncle! There was the footprint of the
hound beside him as he lay. It all fits together. I don't think
that I am a coward, Watson, but that sound seemed to freeze my
very blood. Feel my hand!"

It was as cold as a block of marble.

"You'll be all right to-morrow."

"I don't think I'll get that cry out of my head. What do you
advise that we do now?"

"Shall we turn back?"

"No, by thunder; we have come out to get our man, and we will do
it. We after the convict, and a hell-hound, as likely as not,
after us. Come on! We'll see it through if all the fiends of the
pit were loose upon the moor."

We stumbled slowly along in the darkness