se of the passage as a means by which he could avoid
the sentries.

"But he would not avoid the sentries, for they would catch the messenger
all the same," he cried; "and I am driving myself half crazy about
nothing, and--What's that?"

He stood listening, for it seemed to him that a low harsh moan had come
from out of the dark shady woodland near where he stood.

He listened, but there was no further sound, and then he looked round,
puzzled for the moment as to where he was. But he recognised certain
features in the dense piece of forest directly after, and found that he
had during his musings wandered in and in among the trees till he was in
the old wilderness, close to the great fallen tree where they had made
the discovery of the broken way into the hole.

He turned angrily away, for the thought of the secret passage brought
back his mental struggle, as to which course he ought to pursue, and
flight being certainly the easiest, he was about to hurry off, when once
more the low harsh moan smote his ear.

"Two boughs rubbing together," he muttered, after listening for a
repetition of the sound, recalling the while what peculiarly strange
noises two fretting branches would make.

"But there's no wind," he said to himself; and directly after there came
the sharp chirp of a bird, and then the low moan.

It was so unmistakably a cry of pain, that Fred took a few steps forward
among the dense bushes, and then looked around.

There was nothing visible, but he was not surprised, for he was close
now to the hidden hole down which he had fallen when he made his jump,
and crushed through part of the touchwood trunk, and everywhere there
was a dense thicket of undergrowth, through which, after another pause,
he forced his way.

Nothing to see--nothing to hear; and he paused again, listening
intently, and bending forward in the direction of the hidden opening, as
the thought struck him that the cry might come from there.

Still, there was no further sound, and feeling convinced that he had hit
upon the true source of the noise, and with a shiver of dread running
through him as a dozen terrible suggestions offered themselves in
connection with the sound and with Scarlett, he was about to force his
way to the hole and drag away some of the broken branches which they had
heaped there, and which he could now see were intact, and with the ferns
and brambles and ivy growing luxuriantly, when a fresh moan met his ear,
evide