A quiver of visible silence ran across the leafy
walls. They stood stock still, staring blankly into each other's eyes.
"A wood-pigeon!" whispered Uncle Felix, recovering himself first.
"We've been _seen_!"
A faint smile passed over Tim's startled face. There was no other
expression in it. The tension was distressingly acute. One sentence,
however, came to the lips of both adventurers. They uttered it under
their breath together:
"It's--disappeared!"
Instinctively they held hands then. Tim stood, rooted to the ground.
"The _centre!_" They whispered it almost inaudibly. The horror of the
spot where people vanished was upon them both. The power of the Wood
had worn them down.
"Yes, but don't _say_ it," cried Uncle Felix; "above all, don't say it
aloud." And he clapped one hand upon his own mouth, and the other upon
the boy's, as Tim came cuddling closer to his comforting expanse of
side. "That only wakes it up, and--"
He did not finish the sentence. Instead, his mind began to think
tremendously. They were both badly frightened. What was the best thing
to be done? At first he thought: "Keep perfectly still, and make no
slightest movement; a quiet person is not noticed.
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