The cocks began to crow somewhere near, the dogs barked, presently the melancholy sound of the watch-bell was wafted to them from the distant village church, and was swallowed up in the sombre silence of the forest. A large bird, looking like a big black patch in the faint moonlight, rose into the air, and there was an ominous sound in the ravine of a flurried piping and the rustling of feathers. "A crow--and a seed crow[5] too, if I'm not mistaken," observed Jig-Leg. "Look here!" said Hopeful, sinking heavily on the ground, "go you, and I'll remain here ... I can do no more ... I'm choking ... and my head is going round." "Well, there you are!" said Jig-Leg crossly. "What, can't you do a little more?" "I can't." "I congratulate you. Ugh!" "I've not a bit of strength in me." "I'm not surprised, we've tramped without a meal since yesterday." "No, it's not that ... it's all up with me ... look how the blood trickles!" And Hopeful raised his hand to Jig-Leg's face, all bespattered with something dark. The other looked askance at it, and then, lowering his voice, asked: "What's to be done?" "You go on ... I'll remain here ... I may rest a bit." "Where shall I go? Suppose I go to the village and say there's a man in the forest taken bad?" "No ... they'd kill me." "If they get the chance." Hopeful fell upon his back, coughed a hollow cough, and vomited a whole quantity of blood. [5] A rook. "How goes it?" inquired Jig-Leg, standing over him, but looking the other way. "Very badly," said Hopeful, in an almost inaudible voice, and fell a-coughing again. Jig-Leg cursed loudly and cynically. "Suppose I call someone?" "Whom?" said Hopeful, his voice was like a dismal echo. "Or perhaps you may now be able to get up and go on for a little while?" "No, no!" Jig-Leg sat by the head of his comrade, and embracing his own knees with his arms gazed steadily at Hopeful's face. The breast of Hopeful was moving convulsively with a hollow rattling sound, his eyes were deep-sunken, his lips gaped strangely apart and seemed to cleave to his teeth. From the left corner of his mouth a dark living jet was trickling. "Is it still flowing?" asked Jig-Leg quietly, and in the tone of his question there was something very near to respect. The face of Hopeful shuddered. "It is flowing," came a faint rattle. Jig-Leg rested his head on his knees and was silent.