There, listen! Isn't it horrible!" He spoke as the cry came again faintly but piteous in the extreme.
Dick drove the pole down into the soft bottom of the mere and sent the punt surging through the water, determined now to go straight to the spot whence the cry seemed to come; and, guided by the sound, he toiled away for about ten minutes before giving way to Tom, who worked hard to reach the place.
For, once the two lads had taken action, they seemed to forget their nervous dread, while what was more encouraging to them to proceed was the fact that as they reduced the distance the cries gradually seemed to be more human, and were evidently those of some person in peril or great distress.
It was a weird strange journey over the water now, the excitement lent by their mission seeming to change the aspect of all around.

The reeds whispered, the patches of growth looked black, and every now and then they disturbed some water-fowl, whose hurried flight seemed suddenly to have become mysterious and awe-inspiring, as if it were a creature of the darkness which had been watching their coming and had risen to hover round.
But there was the cry again and again, sometimes faint and distant, sometimes sounding as if close at hand, and, as is often the case, apparently varying in position to right or left as it was borne by the soft night wind.
"We cannot go any farther," cried Dick at last as he drove the boat in amongst the broad belt of reeds which fringed the edge of the mere.
"Yes, we can.

There's a way here," cried Tom excitedly, pointing through the gloom to his left where there was an opening.

"Coming!" he yelled as the cry rose once more.
Dick backed the boat out, with the reeds whistling and rustling strangely, and the next minute he had it right in the gloomy opening, which proved to be quite a little bay, where, at the end of a few good thrusts of the pole, the prow of the punt bumped up against the quivering moss.
The two boys got out cautiously; the pole was driven down into the peat, and the boat made fast; and then they paused and listened for the next cry.
Everything now was perfectly silent, not so much as the whisper of a reed or the whir of the wing of a nightbird fell upon their ears; and at last, in an awe-stricken whisper, Tom said: "Hicky is right.

It was something strange from out of the marsh.