off on the instant as you turn off water from a tap.

Dunn paused, too, supposing that for some reason the other had
stopped for a moment and would soon walk on again.

But a minute passed and then another and there was still no sound of
the footsteps beginning again. A little puzzled, Dunn moved
cautiously forward.

He saw nothing, he found nothing, there was no sign at all of the
man he had been following.

It was as though he had vanished bodily from the face of the earth,
and yet how this had happened, or why, or what had become of him,
Dunn could not imagine, for this spot was, it seemed, in the very
heart of the wood, there was no shelter of any sort or kind anywhere
near, and though there were trees all round just the ground was
fairly open.

"Well, that's jolly queer," he muttered, for indeed it had a strange
and daunting effect, this sudden disappearance in the midst of the
wood of the man he had followed so far, and the silence around seemed
all the more intense now that those regular and heavy footsteps had
ceased.

"Jolly queer, as queer a thing as ever I came across," he muttered
again.

He listened and heard a faint sound from his right. He listened
again and thought he heard a rustling on his left, but was not sure