"Very well, Paganel."
Thereupon each wrapped himself in his poncho, the fuel was replenished for the night, and soon all but Glenarvan were buried in profound repose.
He alone did not sleep. A secret uneasiness held him in a state of wakeful fatigue. He could not help thinking of that herd, flying in one common direction, of their inexplicable terror. They could not have been pursued by wild beasts: at that height there were scarcely any, and yet fewer hunters. What fright had driven them over the abysses of Antuco, and what was the cause of it? He thought of their strange situation, and felt a presentiment of coming danger.
However, under the influence of a partial drowsiness, his ideas gradually modified, and fear gave place to hope. He saw himself in anticipation, on the morrow, on the plain at the foot of the Andes. There his actual search was to begin; and success was not, perhaps, far distant. He thought of Captain Grant and his two sailors, delivered from a cruel slavery.
These images passed rapidly before his mind, every instant interrupted by a flash of fire, a spark, a flame, illumining the faces of his sleeping companions, and casting a flickering shadow over the walls of the hut. Then his presentiments returned with more vividness, while he listened vaguely to the external sounds so difficult to explain on these solitary summits.
At one moment he thought he heard distant rumblings, dull and threatening like the rollings of thunder. These sounds could be caused only by a tempest, raging on the sides of the mountain. He wished to convince himself, and left the hut.
The moon had risen, and the sky was clear and calm. Not a cloud was to be seen either above or below, only now and then the moving shadows of the flames of the volcano. At the zenith twinkled thousands of stars, while the rumblings still continued. They seemed to approach, and run along the chain of the mountains.
