"If we don't," he said, "we'll be soaked through and through with the cold mist, and in another hour some of us will be shaking with the chills and fever."
Grace protested against stopping. She was in the greatest alarm lest a tragedy should happen ahead of us, but, while we felt the same fear, we recognized also the truth of the old maxim about the futility of too much haste. I pointed out the dangers to her, and urged that her father probably had sought shelter somewhere before this. She was compelled to yield, not to my arguments necessarily, but to her own judgment. I often think what a jolly world this would be if our judgment and our wishes were always agreed.
We chose a somewhat sheltered spot, which was not difficult to find in a region of hill on hill, criss-crossed with ravines and gullies, and gathered heaps of brushwood. The fire was much more difficult to light than on the night when I was the colonel's prisoner, but we set it to burning at last, and glad we were when the flames rose high up in the chilly darkness.
We refreshed ourselves with a little supper. Then Crothers insisted that some of us, and especially Miss Hetherill, should get a little sleep. Again she showed herself a wise girl by trying to obey, despite her wishes. We made her a bed of blankets between the fire and a cliff, and, though she said she would not be able to sleep, in half an hour she slept. As she lay there with a bit of her pale, weary face showing above the blankets, I felt very sorry for her, far sorrier than I had ever felt for myself, even when under sentence of death; I could see the reality of her trouble, and I had never believed fully in mine.
All the men except Crothers and I and a third rolled themselves in their blankets and slept. I sat by the fire, wondering what the outcome of it all would be. I noticed that Crothers continued to look up uneasily at the skies and the clouded moon, and at last I asked him what he might have on his mind.
"Bad weather," he replied, briefly.
"We have that already," I said, pointing to the cliffs soaking in the wet mist.
"More coming," he said, putting on a very weatherwise look.
"What do you expect?" I asked.