When he awoke he was alone.
He discovered that he was strapped very tightly to a young Scotch fir.
His arms were bent behind him and his wrists tied together with cords knotted at the back of the tree; his legs were shackled, and further cords fastened them to the bole.

Also there was a halter round the trunk and just under his chin, so that while he breathed freely enough, he could not move his head.

Before him was a tangle of bracken and scrub, and beyond that the gloom of dense pines; but as he could see only directly in front his prospect was strictly circumscribed.
Very slowly he began to take his bearings.

The pain in his head was now dulled and quite bearable, and the flow of blood had stopped, for he felt the encrustation of it beginning on his cheeks.

There was a tremendous noise all around him, and he traced this to the swaying of tree-tops in the gale.