happy, apparently, in their profound silence. Only a couple of
fields away shone the red and green lights of the railway track.
Every few minutes the goods-trains went rumbling over the metals.
The man on the ground heard them with a shiver. Resolutely he
kept his face turned in the opposite direction. The night mail
went thundering northward, and he clutched even at the nettles
which grew amongst the grass where he was crouching, as though
filled with a sudden terror. Then there was silence once
more--silence which became deeper as the hour approached
midnight. Passers-by were fewer; the birds and animals came out
from their hiding places. A rabbit scurried across the road; a
rat darted down the tiny stream. Now and then birds moved in the
undergrowth, and the man, who was struggling all the time with a
deadly faintness, felt the silence grow more and more oppressive.
He began even to wonder where he was. He closed his eyes. Was
that really the tinkling of a guitar, the perfume of almond and
cherry blossom, floating to him down the warm wind? He began to
lose himself in dreams until he realized that actual
unconsciousness was close upon him. Then he set his teeth tight
and clenched his hands. Away in the distance a faint,
long-expected sound came travelling to his ears. At last, then,
his long wait was over. Two fiery eyes were stealing along the
lonely road. The throb of an engine was plainly audible. He
staggered up, swaying a little on his feet, and holding out his
hands. The motor car came to a standstill before him, and the man
who was driving it sprang to the ground. Words passed between
them rapidly,--questions and answers,--the questions of an
affectionate servant, and the answers of a man fighting a grim
battle for consciousness. But these two spoke in a language of
their own, a language which no one who passed along that road was