He would never find it:――never, never. And Pouncer must have passed with it! He would not understand; he would know only that he had been deserted――left to these cruel men who would certainly ill-treat him. Perhaps he had felt that Grif was near, and had barked, while his master had slept on in brutal unconsciousness. A passion of grief and remorse shook his slight frame as he lay sobbing, his face buried in his arms. Above him the night wind whispered in the dim trees――remote, yet strangely gentle. Moonlight chequered the dark grass with pools of milky pallor. A dead silence, save for this rustling leafy murmur, was over everything. CHAPTER X THROUGH THE DARKNESS ‘But who that beauteous Boy beguil’d, That beauteous Boy to linger here? Alone, by night, a little child, In place so silent and so wild―― Has he no friend, no loving mother near?’ ――_Coleridge._ ‘Let not the dark thee cumber: What though the moon does slumber? The stars of the night Will lend thee their light Like tapers clear without number.’ ――_Herrick._ Suddenly Grif sat up, for he had heard a bark. Was it only in his imagination, that low, deep wow-ow-ow-ow, coming to him through the darkness? He sat listening intently, afraid almost to draw his breath. Then it came again:――it was Pouncer. Grif started to his feet. The barking came from the other side of the copse, and though in the stillness of the night in this solitary place such a sound might travel far, he felt that it was not really very distant. Perhaps two hundred yards away, possibly less; at all events it would be there to guide him, for now he heard it once more. He had not the faintest idea what time it was, but judging from the darkness it was probably close upon midnight. It might be later, but he did not think so. In any case the circus must have encamped for the night, and be at this moment within a short distance of the very spot where he had fallen asleep.