"I'll taste it before I sleep, if you will. The air is close here. Let us go and fill our lungs with mountain breezes."
The boy sprang to his feet at once, careful to take his wine flask with him, and followed Ellerey on to the plateau.
There were stars in the clear sky, and a crescent moon that seemed to be poised on a sharp edge of the higher mountains. The air was keen, tingling in throat and nostrils.
"…the wise man knows As his road he goes That the best of life's gifts is wine," came again the lilting chorus from the tower. It was the only sound that disturbed the silence—the silence of a world.
"A night for regrets, Captain, yet one to speed ambition," said
Grigosie.
"Yours has been too short to accumulate regrets."
"They get heaped together very rapidly sometimes," was the reply. "How long shall we stay here?"
"Only until we have seen Vasilici and delivered our message."
"And then back to Sturatzberg with our demands backed by an army of patriots," said Grigosie. "And for the success of the scheme—how do you reckon the chances?"
"If I expected failure I should not be here."