"You little trump—you wonderful, lovely, square little brick!" he breathed silently, and bent over to touch her cheek lightly with his lips. Slight as the caress was, it disturbed her, and even in her sleep her subconscious mind sent out an exploring hand, to touch her Steve and thus be reassured. He pressed her hand and she settled back comfortably, with a long, deep breath; and he stretched his iron-clad length beside her and closed his eyes, firmly resolved not to waste a minute of this wonderful night in sleep.
When he opened them an instant later, it was broad daylight, the boulders had been rolled away, the fragrance of roasting meat permeated the atmosphere, and Nadia was making a deafening clamor, beating his steel breastplate lustily with the flat of his huge saber.
"Daylight in the swamp, you sleeper!" she exclaimed. "Roll out or roll up! Come and get it, before I throw it away!"
"I must have been kind of tired," he said sheepishly, when he saw that she had shot a bird and had cooked breakfast for them both while he had been buried in oblivion.
"Peculiar, too, isn't it?" Nadia asked, pointedly. "You only did about ten days' work yesterday in ten minutes, swinging this frightful snickersnee of yours. Why, you played with it as though it were a knitting-needle, and when I wanted to wake you up with it, I could hardly lift it."
"Thought you didn't want that subject even mentioned?" he tried to steer the talk away from his prowess with the broadsword.
"That was yesterday," airily. "Besides, I don't mind talking about you—it's thinking about us being ... you know ... that I can't stand."
"All x, ace. I get you right. Let's eat."
Breakfast over, they started down the valley, Stevens carrying his helmet under his arm. Hardly had they started however, than Nadia's keen eyes saw a movement through the trees, and, she stopped and pointed. Stevens looked once, then hand in hand they dashed back to their cave.
"We'll pile up some of the boulders and you lie low," he instructed her as he screwed on his helmet. She snapped open his face-plate.