“I have heard it said, my lord, that in a fog one always walked round in a circle,” said Mr. Bunter, seized with a tardy diffidence.
“Not on a slope, surely,” said Lord Peter, beginning to feel bold out of sheer contrariness.
Bunter, being out of his element, had, for once, no good counsel to offer.
“Well, we can’t be much worse off than we are,” said Lord Peter. “We’ll try it, and keep on shouting.”
He grasped Bunter’s hand, and they strode gingerly forward into the thick coldness of the fog.
How long that nightmare lasted neither could have said. The world might have died about them. Their own shouts terrified them; when they stopped shouting the dead silence was more terrifying still. They stumbled over tufts of thick heather. It was amazing how, deprived of sight, they exaggerated the inequalities of the ground. It was with very little confidence that they could distinguish uphill from downhill. They were shrammed through with cold, yet the sweat was running from their faces with strain and terror.
Suddenly—from directly before them as it seemed, and only a few yards away—there rose a long, horrible shriek—and another—and another.
“My God! What’s that?”
“It’s a horse, my lord.”
“Of course.” They remembered having heard horses scream like that. There had been a burning stable near Poperinghe—
“Poor devil,” said Peter. He started off impulsively in the direction of the sound, dropping Bunter’s hand.
“Come back, my lord,” cried the man in a sudden agony. And then, with a frightened burst of enlightenment:
“For God’s sake stop, my lord—the bog!”
A sharp shout in the utter blackness.
“Keep away there—don’t move—it’s got me!”
And a dreadful sucking noise.
XII
The Alibi
When actually in the embrace of a voracious and powerful wild animal, the desirability of leaving a limb is not a matter to be subjected to lengthy consideration.
The Wallet of Kai-Lung
“I tripped right into it,” said Wimsey’s voice steadily, out of the blackness. “One sinks very fast. You’d better not come near, or you’ll go too. We’ll yell a bit. I don’t think we can be very far from Grider’s Hole.”
“If your lordship will keep shouting,” returned Mr. Bunter, “I think—I can—get to you,” he panted, untying with his teeth the hard knot of a coil of string.
“Oy!” cried Lord Peter obediently. “Help! Oy! Oy!”
Mr. Bunter groped towards the voice, feeling cautiously before him with his walking-stick.
“Wish you’d keep away, Bunter,” said Lord Peter peevishly. “Where’s the sense of both of us—?” He squelched and floundered again.
“Don’t do that, my lord,” cried the man entreatingly. “You’ll sink farther in.”
“I’m up to my thighs now,” said Lord Peter.
“I’m coming,” said Bunter. “Go on shouting. Ah, here’s where it gets soggy.”
He felt the ground carefully, selected a tussocky bit which seemed reasonably firm, and drove his stick well into it.
“Oy! Hi! Help!” said Lord Peter, shouting lustily.
Mr. Bunter tied one end of the string to the walking stick, belted his Burberry tightly about him, and, laying himself cautiously down upon his belly, advanced, clue in hand, like a very Gothic Theseus of a late and degenerate school.
The bog heaved horribly as he crawled over it, and slimy water squelched up into his face. He felt with his hands for tussocks of grass, and got support from them when he could.
“Call out again, my lord!”
“Here!” The voice was fainter and came from the right. Bunter had lost his line a little, hunting for tussocks. “I daren’t come faster,” he explained. He felt as though he had been crawling for years.
“Get out while there’s time,” said Peter. “I’m up to my waist. Lord! this is rather a beastly way to peg out.”
“You won’t peg out,” grunted Bunter. His voice was suddenly quite close. “Your hands now.”
For a few agonizing minutes two pairs of hands groped over the invisible slime. Then:
“Keep yours still,” said Bunter. He made a slow, circling movement. It was hard work keeping his face out of the mud. His hands slithered over the slobbery surface—and suddenly closed on an arm.
“Thank God!” said Bunter. “Hang on here, my lord.”
He felt forward. The arms were perilously close to the sucking mud. The hands crawled clingingly up his arms and rested on his shoulders. He grasped Wimsey beneath the armpits and heaved. The exertion drove his own knees deep into the bog. He straightened himself hurriedly. Without using his knees he could get no purchase, but to use them meant certain death. They could only hang on desperately till help came—or till the strain became too great. He could not even shout; it was almost more than he could do to keep his mouth free of water. The dragging strain on his shoulders was intolerable; the mere effort to breathe meant an agonizing crick in the neck.
“You must go on shouting, my lord.”
Wimsey shouted. His voice was breaking and fading.
“Bunter, old thing,” said Lord Peter, “I’m simply beastly sorry to have let you in for this.”
“Don’t mention it, my lord,” said Bunter, with his mouth in the slime. A thought struck him.
“What became of your stick, my lord?”
“I dropped it. It should be somewhere near, if it hasn’t sunk in.”
Bunter cautiously released his left hand and felt about.
“Hi! Hi! Help!”
Bunter’s hand closed over the stick, which, by a happy accident, had fallen across a stable tuft of grass. He pulled it over to him, and laid it across his arms, so that he could just rest his chin upon it. The relief to his neck was momentarily so enormous that his courage was renewed. He felt he could hang on forever.
“Help!”
Minutes passed like hours.
“See that?”
A faint, flickering gleam somewhere away to the right. With desperate energy both shouted together.
“Help! Help! Oy! Oy! Help!”
An answering yell. The light swayed—came nearer—a spreading blur in the fog.
“We must keep it up,” panted Wimsey. They yelled
