He piled them up in the centre of the floor, just under the break in the roof, and then he went out and gathered sticks and brushwood, and built up a little mound. Lastly he took a box of matches from his pocket and struck a light, and kindled the fire.
The dried leaves and twigs crackled and blazed, and the smoke ascended in a straight column to the hole in the roof through which it escaped.
“Come, dear Sybil, and walk around the fire until your clothes are dry, and then sit down by it. This fire, with its smoke ascending and escaping through that aperture, is just such a fire as our forefathers in the old, old times enjoyed, as the best thing of the kind they knew anything about. Kings had no better,” said Lyon Berners, cheerfully.
Sybil approached the fire, but instead of walking around it, she sat down on the flagstones before it. She looked very weary, thoroughly prostrated in body, soul, and spirit.
“What are we waiting for, in this horrible pause?” she inquired at length.
“We are waiting for Pendleton. He is to bring us news, as soon as he can slip away and steal to us without fear of detection,” answered Lyon Berners.
“Oh, Heaven! what words have crept into our conversation about ourselves and friends too! ‘Steal,’ ‘fear,’ ‘detection!’ Oh, Lyon!—But there, I will say no more. I will not revert to the horror and degradation of this position again, if I can help it,” groaned Sybil.
“My wife, you are very faint. Try to take some nourishment,” urged Lyon, as he began to open the small parcel of refreshments thoughtfully provided by Captain Pendleton.
“No, no, I cannot swallow a morsel. My throat is parched and constricted,” she answered.
“If I only had a little coffee for you,” said Lyon.