Presently they ceased, and a death-like silence ensued.
Cuthbert dared not move, and scarcely dared to breathe.

This was the most trying experience he had yet had.

He had felt far less fear on the darkly-flowing river and in that strange underground cellar, against both of which the wise woman had warned him.
But after a long pause of silence he heard another and a different laugh--a laugh in which he recognized the sardonic intonation he had recently heard from the lips of Long Robin.
"I trow that has been enow," spoke a voice nigh at hand, though the speaker was invisible owing to the thick growth of bushes.

"If that sound were caused by aught but a rabbit or wildcat, I wager the hardy traveller has taken to his heels and fled.

But I misdoubt me that it was anything human.