CHAPTER XXIV
IN STRANGE COMPANY
A load report rang out just behind me. The light before my eyes vanished. Something lurched up against my chest, knocking the breath out of me, then collapsed in a heap on to the ground at my feet.
There was an instant’s stillness. Now footsteps could be heard crackling forward through the undergrowth. There came the sound of a heavy blow, a stifled cry, a dull thud as though a body had fallen heavily. What had happened? And what was happening? Helplessly I stared about me, striving in vain to pierce the blackness of the forest. I heard people moving close beside me, but no word was spoken.
Then suddenly someone touched me. The ropes which bound my wrists were being severed with a blunt instrument. Now my legs were being released. Some fragments of rope
