“Advance!”
They broke into a sharp trot, straight for the horrible-looking, stiffened figure which lay crouched together in an unnatural attitude just behind a bush; but, before they were half way, there was a quick movement, a sharp rustling of leaves, and the dead man had sprung up and was running as swiftly as a deer.
Marcus stared in astonishment, looking so surprised that Serge lowered the butt of his spear and rested upon its shaft in his familiar home attitude when the staff he carried was terminated by a crook instead of a keenly-pointed blade.
“There, you see, my lad. That’s the sort of dead man you have got to beware of after a fight. They are a very dangerous sort; like that fellow, they are crippled a bit, but they won’t stop to be buried. They don’t like the idea. What they do is to play sham till their enemy has marched by ’em, thinking they are real, and then when some poor fellow is looking forward, one of them dead barbarians lets him have it in the back. There, we will go and sit up on the top there, and I’ll lean up against your back, and you shall lean up against mine while we eat our breakfast and are busy with our teeth, and leave our four eyes to play watchful sentry till we’ve done.”
Marcus felt quite willing now that the excitement caused by the flying foe was at an end, and, soon after, Serge’s little store was drawn upon, and, quite happy and contented, the two old companions made what Marcus thought was the most appetising breakfast he had ever had in his life.
“Hah!” cried Serge, as they rose at last. “Now let’s go down to the stream for a drink. Always camp, my lad, beside a river or a lake; and if you can’t—” He stopped short.
“Well, if you can’t?” said Marcus.
“Why, then you must go thirsty, same as you must go hungry too sometimes. Didn’t I always teach you that a soldier’s first duty was to learn how to fast?”
“Oh, yes, I remember,” said Marcus, as he lay down to drink, while his companion watched, and then drank in turn, rising to say, as he drew a long, deep breath:
“There, that’s as much as I want now. Nice clear water, and we’ve left plenty for the next as comes. But a deal of trouble I used to have in the face of plenty to make you believe it was a soldier’s duty to learn how to fast. You always were the hungriest boy I ever knew.”