“You refer to the stone? Surely, sir, you don’t hold me to blame for it, or, in a matter of such importance to me, grudge the sacrifice of a little personal comfort?”
“I leave you to judge of that—as of the propriety of some little courteous acknowledgment.”
“You have it in full,” said the soldier sullenly. “If I fail to express it, you must understand me to be a man of few words.”
Blythewood had his tongue in his cheek.
“We’re all babes in the wood,” he cried; “with a fair chance of sufferin’ their fate. Let’s get under the leaves and tell stories, and not risk goin’ to heaven squabblin’. Hasn’t a man of us a flask about him?”
They were not vouchsafed even that comfort. The long night drew upon them huddled down there in their burrow. The cold was at first piercing, and they soon fell silent, each as wrapped in dismal reflection as, inadequately, in his great-coat. They could not sleep, but only shiver and suffer; and the servant moaned and whispered intermittently through the endless hours. His master did what he could for him in the pitchy darkness, building him a pillow of dead leaves and drawing the skirts of his own surtout about the icy feet.
Towards dawn, however, a little comfort of warmth triumphed in the cabined hole. This was because the snow had then completely enwrapped their place of refuge. One by one, weak and exhausted, they dropped into a shallow abyss of sleep.
Tuke was the first to come to himself again. He started up with a jerk, and felt the rat of hunger gnawing at his ribs.
“Now,” he thought—when he could at last recall his senses—“whither does this tend? We have not eaten or drunk for nigh twenty-four hours, if I may judge, and a definite movement of some sort becomes necessary. Surely four strong men should be able to master any situation.”
Then he thought of Whimple, and bent his head to listen. The man was breathing regularly and profoundly.