"That I must not do till Tuesday morning," said Hal, with an inward sigh. He went from the gallery, and told Francis, for Mistress Hazlehurst's information should she inquire, of the failure of his attempt to obtain food for her. She still slept, or feigned sleep.
Marryott then newly assigned the posts to be guarded, dividing the company into two watches, one headed by himself, the other by Bottle. The latter took the first period of duty. The men who were thus for a time relieved were prompt to assuage their thirst, though water was a beverage unusual to them; then they stretched themselves on the rushes in the hall to sleep. Hal also slept.
At evening, being awakened by Kit, he and his quota of men arose to do sentinel duty during the first half of the night.
"Is Barnet still yonder?" he asked Kit, before leaving the hall.
"No; he has set Hudsdon in's place. Roger has divided his troop into watches. He and some of his men have made their beds in the outhouses. Hudsdon and the rest have planted torches in a line around the house. There's not an ell's distance of the mansion's outside, from ground to second story, that cannot be seen by the torch-light. The men are posted beyond the line, out of our sight; only here and there you may catch now and then the light of a slow-match that some fellow blows. If we made a sortie from the house into their torch-light, they would mow us down with muskets and arquebuses from the dark."
Marryott sat out his watch in a partly torpid state of mind. The deception that Mistress Hazlehurst had practised upon him, though he acknowledged an avowed enemy's and unwilling prisoner's right to practise it, had struck down his heart, benumbed it, robbed it of hope and of its zest for life. He thought of nothing but present trifles—the writhing of the flames in the fireplace, the snoring of the sleepers on the hall floor—and his chances of accomplishing his mission. All things, he felt, could be endured,—all but failure in the task he had so far carried toward success. Regarding his life, which indeed seemed to be doomed, he was apathetic.
During the second half of the night, Marryott slumbered, Bottle watched. Dawn found Roger Barnet again at the fountain's edge, again smoking. But, as Kit observed while furtively inspecting him through a window, he puffed a little more vehemently, was somewhat petulant in his motions, more often changed position. Bottle, from having known him of old, and from his slight lameness, took it that he was in some pain.
His injured leg was, indeed, a seat of great torment; but of this, being stoical as well as taciturn, the frowning man of iron gave no other sign than the tokens of irritation noticed by Kit.
"I'm afeard Roger will be, later, of a mind to hasten matters," said the captain. "Peradventure his tobacco is falling low."
"I pray 'twill last till the morrow," said Marryott.