The camp was a quag of mud. Red splashes plastered the boxes. The tent was half-buried in it. His clothes, and the covering tarpaulin, were smeared with it. He felt that it had been worked, not only into his skin, but into his nature. He had never before known what it is to be really dirty, nor what continued dirt may mean to the character. The site of the camp was trodden and spattered and beslimed, yet the brightness of morning made it hard for him to believe that such a storm had passed over him only a little while before. He noticed the trees which had been blasted by the lightning. It had not all been nightmare.
Up the hill, beyond three small circling walls, no taller than the wall beside him, rose up the great central walls. They stood out clearly in the strong light. They were good, well-built walls, with crenellated courses near the top, in the right artistic place, in the inevitable place. The crenellations shewed Roger that he was not widely removed from the builders, in spirit. They talked the universal language of art. But they were more than talkers, these old men. Their work was splendid. It had style. It had the impress of will upon it. The idea had been thought out to its simplest terms. The walls were solid with that simple strength which the efficient nations of antiquity, not yet corrupted by sentiment, affected, in public building. Though they were not like Roman work, they reminded Roger of walls at Richborough and Caerwent. There was something of the same pagan spirit in them, something strong, and fine, and uncanny. Even with the flowering shrubs and grass clumps on them, these walls were uncanny. He shivered a little. The lonely hill had once been a city, where strong, fine, uncanny brains had lived.
Lionel crawled out. "Where's Merrylegs?" he asked. "Why haven't they brought our tea?"
Roger started. Where were the bearers? He had not seen them since he had noticed them go to cover before the bursting of the storm. They had gone. They had not come back. They had not even lighted a fire. "I don't know where they are," he said. "Where can they be?"
"Haven't you seen them?" said Lionel.
"No," he answered. "They're not here. Merrylegs!" he shouted. "Merrylegs!" No answer came.
Lionel's face changed slightly. He jumped on to the low wall, and looked downhill towards the village. The view over that waste of pale grass, through which the river ran, was very splendid; but Lionel was not looking for landscape. "Give me the glasses," he said. He stared through them for several minutes, sweeping the plain. "Run up into the ruins, Roger," said Lionel. "They may be there."
"Wait one minute," said Roger. "There is smoke in the village. That is too big a fire for the people whom I saw there to have made."
"Wet wood," said Lionel promptly. "Come on. We must get these boys into order."
They hurried up the hill, calling for Merrylegs. After a couple of minutes Roger stopped. "Lionel," he said. "During the storm, or just before it, I saw them go to shelter under the lee of the wall there. Their tracks will be in the mud. We could follow them up in that way."