ere the outer moors narrowed he turned westward; then a strip of low, thorn-clad cliff confronted him, up which he toiled along a V-shaped cleft choked with ferns.

The spectral forest of Läis lay just beyond, its wind-tortured branches tossing under a leaden sky.

East and west lonely moors stretched away into the depths of the mist; southward spread the sea; to the north lay the wide woods of Läis, equally deserted now in this sad and empty land.

He hobbled to the edge of the forest and stood knee deep in discoloured ferns, listening. The sombre beech-woods spread thick on either hand, a wilderness of crossed limbs and meshed branches to which still clung great clots of dull brown leaves.

He listened, peering into sinister, grey[pg 69] depths. In the uncertain light nothing stirred except the clashing branches overhead; there was no sound except the wind's flowing roar and the ghostly noise of his own voice, hallooing through the solitude—a voice in the misty void that seemed to carry less sound than the straining cry of a sleeper in his dreams.

If the aëroplane had landed, there was no sign here. How far had it struggled on, sheering the tree-tops, before it fell?—if indeed it had fallen somewhere in the wood's grey depths?

As long as he had sufficient strength he prowled along the forest, entering it here and there, calling, listening, searching the foggy corridors of trees. The rotting brake crackled underfoot; the tree tops clashed and creaked above him.

At last, having only e