"Listen, we'll look into this in an hour or two. . . . I am tired out. . . . I am going to sleep. . . . Keep watch so long . . . and if they come and attack us . . ."
"Ah, if they come, we shall be saved, chief!" cried Gourel, who would have been relieved by a fight, however great the odds.
M. Lenormand lay down on the ground. In a minute, he was asleep.
When he woke up, he remained for some seconds undecided, not understanding; and he also asked himself what sort of pain it was that was tormenting him:
"Gourel!" he called. "Come! Gourel!"
Obtaining no reply, he pressed the spring of his lantern and saw Gourel lying beside him, sound asleep.
"What on earth can this pain be?" he thought. "Regular twitchings. . . . Oh, why, of course, I am hungry, that's all. . . . I'm starving! What can the time be?"
His watch marked twenty minutes past seven, but he remembered that he had not wound it up. Gourel's watch was not going either.
Gourel had awoke under the action of the same inward pangs, which made them think that the breakfast-hour must be long past and that they had already slept for a part of the day.