It seemed to Richard that long months passed while he lay motionless under that weight of sand, breathing spasmodically through the bit of reed. The drift-boards kept the pressure partially from his chest so that he suffered very little. The guard's bayonet had grazed his leg without piercing it, but the thirst in his throat was something terrible. Peter's voice had penetrated through the boards and their thin covering of sand, so that he knew the fog was following the wind from the sea. It was for this he had hoped, and it was this Peter meant to tell him in those last words. Dear old Peter; how he had tried to dissuade him from this mad plan, and when that was impossible, how he had risked his own safety to aid him. Richard felt the tears on his face as he recalled his friend's unselfish offices. Several times during the wait for a stormy day he had been on the point of giving up the whole plan, lest it work a mischief for Peter; but the latter had said it would mean only a day in irons for him, and that he was willing to risk that much for his friend's liberty; it was for Richard himself that he feared. But even death had a smiling face for Richard, compared to a winter spent in the vile ship; and so the plan had gone on, and by Peter's care he was lying here in his grave, accounted of the world as dead. By and by his limbs began to cramp and ache. Through strong will power he had kept them rigid during those terrible moments of examination and removal from the ship. He would not have dared assay the plan had he not known how superficial, through repetition, had become the warden's inspection of the corpses--just a few questions and that savage kick. Each time there had been a death during the past fortnight, he had studied the details of the preparation and burial, until he was convinced that he could carry his scheme to a successful close if only Peter was allowed to be one of his sextons.