“Stoop.—That’s it. I watched, and took them—not English ones, but they will shoot, I expect,” And softly he slipped the sling of a musket over Pen’s shoulders, following that by handing him a cartouche-box and belt. “I have got a gun for myself too. Better than a bugle. There!” And in the darkness there was the sound of a belt being tightly drawn through a buckle. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” said Pen.
“Where’s your hand?”
“Here.”
“Right!” And the younger lad gripped his friend’s extended palm. “Now, it’s this way. I planned it all when you were so ill, and said to myself that it would be the way when you got better. Come along.”
Softly and silently the two slipped off in the darkness, making for the belt of forest where the gloomy leafage made only a slight blur against the black velvet sky.