47171    And yet I can find my way to the very heart of it and return alive.

47172    By George, there is another of those miserable ponies!'

47173    Something brown was rolling and tossing among the green sedges.

47174    Then a long, agonized, writhing neck shot upwards and a dreadful cry echoed over the moor.

47175    It turned me cold with horror, but my companion's nerves seemed to be stronger than mine.

47176    'It's gone!' said he.

47177    'The Mire has him.

47178    Two in two days, and many more, perhaps, for they get in the way of going there in the dry weather, and never know the difference until the Mire has them in its clutch.

47179    It's a bad place, the great Grimpen Mire.'

47180    'And you say you can penetrate it?'

47181    'Yes, there are one or two paths which a very active man can take.

47182    I have found them out.'

47183    'But why should you wish to go into so horrible a place?'

47184    'Well, you see the hills beyond?

47185    They are really islands cut off on all sides by the impassable Mire, which has crawled round them in the course of years.