I left them in what remains of a little barricaded and fortified hotel disputing away in rather a foolish fashion, because they were more or less inebriate and the sun had burned them badly. And speeding to my _cache_, I drew out my two blankets and my waterproof. While I had been forgetting other things, I had learned two new things--how to sleep and how to shoot--and now since there was no more need to practise the one, I would do the other. PART III-THE SACK I THE PALACE 16th August, 1900. * * * * * The next morning (which was only yesterday!) I awoke in much the same strange despondency. Around me, as the grey light stole softly into my lean-to, everything was absolutely quiet. It was the same in every way as it had been the morning after the last terrible night; and yet that was already so long ago! Almost mechanically, I searched the breast pocket of my soil-worn shirt for the previous day's orders, so as to see about picquet posting; then I remembered suddenly, with a curious heart-sinking, that it was all over, finished, completed.... It was so strange that it should be so--that everything should have come so suddenly to an end. After all those experiences, to be lying on the ground like some tramp in Europe, without a thing to one's name, was to be merely grotesque and incongruous. Yet it was necessary to become accustomed immediately to the idea that one belonged to the ordinary world, where one would not be distinguished from one's fellow; where everything was quiet and orderly.... And I was separated from this by such a mighty gulf. I knew so many things now. What! was I no longer to experience that supreme delight of shooting and being shot at--of that unending excitement? Oh! was it really over?... I got up, and shook myself disconsolately, retied what remained of a neckcloth, and then looked in disgust at my boots. My boots! Two and a half months' work and sleep in them--my only pair--had not improved their appearance. Yet I had not even suspected that before; the evil fruit of relief had made my nakedness clear.... Alongside the whole post of ten men was still peacefully slumbering--regulars and volunteers heaped impartially together. Poor devils! Each one, after the enormous excitement of the relief, had come back mechanically to his accustomed place, because this strange life of ours, imposed by the discipline of events, has become a second nature, which we scarcely know how to shake off. Like tired dogs, we still creep into our holes. The youngest were moaning and tossing, as they have done every night for weeks past--shaking off sleep like a harmful narcotic, because the poison of fighting is too strong for most blood in these degenerate days. What sounds have I not heard during the past two months--what sighs, what gasps, what groans, what muttered protests! When men lie asleep, their imaginations betray their secret thoughts....