“That won’t do,” he muttered. “Done up, I suppose, and it was the lying on my back and leaving off thinking. But I couldn’t have slept for many minutes.”
For the matter of that the time might have been two or three hours, for aught he could have told; but as it was he had not been asleep a minute when he sprang back into wakefulness, and, determined now not to run any more risks, he stopped with his horse, resting against its flank and thinking of what a great solitary place he was in, and how strange it seemed for that vast country to have so few inhabitants.
His aim was to wait until everybody would be asleep at the Wattles, and then ride softly up, when he felt that there would be light enough for his purpose, which ought not to take long.
The time glided away slowly, but at last he felt that he might start, and after seeing that the bridle was all right he proceeded to tighten the girths. But Sorrel had been pretty busy over that rich grass, and Nic found that if he did anything to those girths he ought to let them a little loose.
“You greedy pig!” he said, patting the horse affectionately, “eating away like that and enjoying yourself when your master starves.”
The horse whinnied.
“Ah! don’t do that,” said Nic in alarm. “You would spoil everything.”
He mounted and cantered back for a good two miles, finding no difficulty, for the horse went over the same ground again. Then Nic drew rein and walked on and on till he thought he must have missed the place in the dark; but all at once below him he saw a faint light move for a few moments, and disappear.
Evidently a lantern which some one had carried into the house.
Nic checked his horse for quite a quarter of an hour, and then walked it slowly down the slope, till there, dimly showing up before him, he could make out building after building, looming all dim and ghostly-looking, but plain enough to one whose eyes had grown accustomed to the dark.