47202    I've heard it once or twice before, but never quite so loud.'

47203    I looked round, with a chill of fear in my heart, at the huge swelling plain, mottled with the green patches of rushes.

47204    Nothing stirred over the vast expanse save a pair of ravens, which croaked loudly from a tor behind us.

47205    'You are an educated man.

47206    You don't believe such nonsense as that?' said I.

47207    'What do you think is the cause of so strange a sound?'

47208    'Bogs make queer noises sometimes.

47209    It's the mud settling, or the water rising, or something.'

47210    'No, no, that was a living voice.'

47211    'Well, perhaps it was.

47212    Did you ever hear a bittern booming?'

47213    'No, I never did.'

47214    'It's a very rare bird - practically extinct - in England now, but all things are possible upon the moor.

47215    Yes, I should not be surprised to learn that what we have heard is the cry of the last of the bitterns.'

47216    'It's the weirdest, strangest thing that ever I heard in my life.'