him!" dying in our ears.

I must have slept a long time, for when I woke I felt almost myself again.
I had dim remembrances of half-wakings, in which I had seen the old man
still crouching over his smouldering fire muttering his usual curse. But
now he was gone, and Le Marchant and I had the place to ourselves, and
presently Le Marchant stretched and yawned, and sat up blinking at the
smoke.

"Where is the old one?" he asked. "Or was he only a dream?"

"Real enough, and so was his bread and bacon. I'm hungry again," and we
routed about for food, but found only a bottle with spirits in it, which we
drank.

We sat there in the careless sloth that follows too great a strain, but
feeling the strength grow as we sat.

"Is he safe?" asked Le Marchant at last. "Or has he gone to bring the
soldiers on us? And is it night or day?" and he felt round with his foot
till it came on the door and let in a bright gleam of daylight.

We crawled out into the sunshine and sat with our backs against the sods of
the house, looking out over the great sweep of the flats. It was like a sea
whose tumbling waves had turned suddenly into earth and become fixed. Here
and there great green breakers stood up above the rest with bristling
crests of wire grass, and the darker patches of tiny tangled shrubs and
heather and the long black pools and ditches were like the shadows that
dapple the sea. The sky was almost as clear a blue as we get in Sercq, and
was so full of singing larks that it set us thinking of home.