He sank down at the base of the crucifix. It loomed in a ghostly, gray mass against the muddy white of the wind-driven clouds. He pulled his coat collar up about his ears. His eyes were raised to where he thought to see the dimly defined Christ figure; but the pitch black gloom drenched opaquely over everything. There was something mysterious; something remote, about the cross. He imagined peasants kneeling before it in awed reverence, gabbling their prayers. The ignorance of such idolatry! Their prayers had not been proof against the enemies' bullets; and still they prayed. Tired as he was, he laughed aloud.
"Why do you laugh?"
He started to his feet. The voice, quiet and deep, came from directly behind him. He had not conceived the possibility of any human thing lurking so dangerously near. He peered blindly through the obscuring dark.
"Who's there?" He questioned, his fingers involuntarily closing tautly about the butt of the revolver at his belt.
"You, too, ask questions, eh?" The voice went on. "I can almost make out the shape of you. Do you see me?"
It seemed to him then that by carefully tracing the sound of the voice he could dimly define the outline of a man's form lying close within the murked, smudging shadow of the crucifix.
"Yes, I think now I almost see you." His tone was anything but assured. "What are you doing here?"
"What is there to do but sleep?" The muttered words were half defiant. "Name of a dog! it was your laughter that woke me. Why did you laugh?"
"If I weren't so tired, I might explain it to you." He hesitated a second, playing for time. "I was thinking—drawing up a mental picture of the ignorant peasant praying here before your back-rest."
"My back-rest?" The man's voice was sleepily puzzled. "It's this cross you mean, eh? Well, never mind, my fine fellow. It has comfort—And that's something to be grateful for."