The danger that is thrust on a man, he must meet. But the danger into which, being no hero, he has thrust himself, is another matter. I knew that long before morning, I should feel that I had cast away my life. Thoughts of Osgodby and England, visions of home faces, now thousands of miles away, would rise to reproach me. I should see—with that terrible four o’clock in the morning clearness—that for a fancy, for a woman’s whim, for a fantastic point of honor, I had done what I had no right to do; I had sacrificed my life and all that I had valued a short time back. I should remember that she had scarcely touched my hand in friendship, had never listened to a word of love, never said even that she forgave me! But blessed be the soldier’s habit of making the best of the present! In half an hour, before the strangeness of the situation had quite worn off, before her near neighborhood, at another time so disturbing, had grown familiar, before the owl’s sharp note had ceased to startle, I dozed. And presently worn out by strain—for sorrow sleeps soundly—I fell into a deep slumber which lasted until long after daylight. When I awoke there were only two men in the room. They were chopping up drift-wood in a corner, and it was the sound of their hatchets that had roused me. The fire had burned low on the hearth, and my teeth chattered. A fog filled the outer world, poured in through the windows, laid a clammy touch on everything. Firelight had done much the night before to redeem the squalor of the room; this morning, daylight showed it in all its cold and grisly reality. And where was Constantia? Where was Levi? I crossed the room to one of the windows and I looked out. They might be below. But at a distance of five yards the eye plunged into a sea of mist. I could see nothing, and I turned about, shivering, the cold in my bones. “You’re a mighty good sleeper,” one of the men said as I met his eye. “I was tired.” “Well, it would be more than I could manage!” he answered cryptically. “Do you think they’ll let him go!” “Captain Wilmer?” He nodded. He was a shock-headed man in a frayed hunting shirt, buckskin leggings and mocassins. A greasy ragged unshaven figure of a man. “No,” I said, “I’m sure they will not. Would you?” “D—d if I would,” he answered, grinning. “I never let a ’possum go yet that I got a grip of! But you’ve spunk, I’ll say that!” The other man turned and silenced him with an oath, but I marked the speaker for the best-natured of the band. Something might be made of him, at a pinch. Meanwhile the two, having finished their task, stirred up the embers, piled on wood and started the fire. When they had done this I crouched miserably enough over the blaze, while the two went about getting a meal. I noticed that the guns had been removed. It struck me that, were I only fifty yards away in this fog I should be safe from pursuit. But how was I to win those fifty yards!