"Don't make a noise," said Tom quickly, by way of caution. "We're in the wine vat in Leteur's vineyard in Alsace, remember." It took Archer a moment to realize where they were. They ate an early breakfast, finding the simple odds and ends grateful enough, and then Tom took his turn at a nap.
Throughout most of that day they sat with their knees drawn up, leaning against the inside of the great vat, talking in hushed tones of their plans. There was nothing else they could do in the half darkness and the slow hours dragged themselves away monotonously. They had lowered the door, but still left it open upon the merest crack and out of this one or the other would peek at intervals, listening, heart in throat, for the dreaded sound of footfalls. But no one came.
"I thought I hearrd a kind of rustling once," Archer said fearfully.
"There's a couple of cows 'way over in a field," said Tom; "they might have made some sound."
After what seemed to them an age, the leaves over the opening seemed bathed in a strange new light and glistened here and there.
"That crack faces the west," said Tom. "The sun's beginning to go down."
"How do you know?" asked Archer.
"I always knew that up at Temple Camp. I don't know how I know. The morning sun is different from the afternoon sun, that's all. I think it'll set now in about two hours."
"I wonder when she'll come," Archer said.
"Not till it's good and dark, that's sure. She's got to be careful. Maybe this place can be seen from the road, for all we know. Remember, we didn't see it in the daylight."