beyond.

The moon had risen, the tide was half up. Whatever sign or trace
of alien footprint or occupation had been there was already
smoothly obliterated; even the configuration of the land had
changed. A black cape had disappeared, a level line of shore had
been eaten into by teeth of glistening silver. The whole dark
surface of the Marsh was beginning to be streaked with shining
veins as if a new life was coursing through it. Part of the open
bay before the Fort, encroaching upon the shore, seemed in the
moonlight to be reaching a white and outstretched arm towards the
nest of the Kingfisher.


III.


The reveille at Fort Redwood had been supplemented full five
minutes by the voice of Lieutenant George Calvert's servant, before
that young officer struggled from his bed. His head was splitting,
his tongue and lips were dry and feverish, his bloodshot eyes were
shrinking from the insufferable light of the day, his mind a
confused medley of the past night and the present morning, of cards
and wild revelry, and the vision of a reproachfully trim orderly
standing at his door with reports and orders which he now held
composedly in his hand. For Lieutenant Calvert had been enjoying a
symposium variously known as "Stag Feed" and "A Wild Stormy Night"
with several of his brother officers, and a sickening conviction
that it was not the first or the last time he had indulged in these
festivities. At that moment he loathed himself, and then after the