“Kep’ looking out of course, sir? What did you hear?”
“I? Nothing.”
“Then you didn’t try.”
“Yes, I did; twice on each rampart. There was nothing to hear.”
Ben chuckled.
“Ears aren’t so sharp for night-work as they will be, sir, before you’ve done. I heard them on the move every time I stopped.”
“What! the enemy?”
“Yes, sir; they’re padrolling the place round and round. You listen.”
Roy reached over the battlement, and gazed across the black moat, trying to pierce the transparent darkness of the dull soft night. The dew that was refreshing the herbage and flowers of field, common, and copse sent up a deliciously moist scent, and every now and then came the call of a moor-hen paddling about in the moat, the soft piping and croaking of the frogs, and the distant hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! of an owl, but he could make out nothing else, and said so.
“No; they’re pretty quiet now, sir; don’t hear nothing myself.—Yes; there!”