Two pointed rocks connected at the base faced the captain's tent. The silver rays struck upon their foreheads wet with the vapors of night, and made them like frost seen through phosphorus. It was startling. The soul of silver seemed to be sentinel and eye the secret gold below.
And now a sad, a miserable sound grated on the ear of night. A lugubrious quail doled forth a grating, dismal note at long but measured intervals, offending the ear and depressing the heart. This was the only sound Nature afforded for hours. The neighboring bush, though crammed with the merriest souls that ever made feathers vibrate and dance with song, was like a tomb of black marble; not a sound—only this little raven of a quail tolled her harsh, lugubrious crake.
Those whose musical creed is Time before Sentiment might have put up with this night-bird; for to do her justice she was a perfect timist—one crake in a bar the livelong night; but her tune—ugh! She was the mother of all files that play on iron throughout the globe. Crake!—crake!—crake! untuning the night.
An eye of red light suddenly opened in the silver stream shows three men standing by a snowy tent. It is the patrol waiting to be relieved. Three more figures emerge from the distant shade and join them. The first three melt into the shade.
Crake!
The other three remain and mutter. Now they start on their rounds. “What is that?” mutters one.
“I'll go and see.” Click.
“Well!”
“Oh, it is only that brown donkey that cruises about here. She will break her neck in one of the pits some day.”
“Not she. She is not such an ass.”