How long he had been waiting, two hours or three, he had no means of telling. His watch had long since ceased to run. Up on the plateau they had noon-marks at the house and at the mill, and at night, when it was clear, they went out and looked at the seven stars. He was thoroughly drenched by the rain, which had now been falling for a long time. Certainly George should have returned before this, if all had gone well with him. And then his mind returned to the contemplation of that other possibility with a perverseness over which he could exercise no control. He saw Bromley lost in some undiscovered byway of the subterraneous passage, groping his way hopelessly into the center of the mountain; knowing that he was lost when, go which way he would, his pole no longer reached the walls. He saw him retracing his steps, now going this way, now that, but always going he knew not whither, too brave to yield to despair. Then he saw him in a lower cavern, where he had fallen through the floor, groping about the rough walls with bleeding hands and staring eyes, patiently searching for a foothold, his indomitable pluck never failing him. Horrible as these fancies were, others more dreadful oppressed his half-wakeful mind; for he was so tired that in spite of the rain he lapsed into a state of unconsciousness, in which he dreamed that the roof of that suffocating cavern, covered with the brown blotches of bats, was settling slowly upon George, until he could no longer walk erect. Lower, lower it came in its fearful descent, until it bumped his head as he crawled. Now the roof grazes his back as he writhes on his belly like a snake. "Fred! Old boy! Fred!" And there stood Bromley in the flesh, as calm as if nothing unusual had happened, the raindrops hissing in the flame of his torch. CHAPTER XX THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS AND THE PRISMATIC FOWLS Owing to the difficulties of the passage through the cave of the bats, and the utter barrenness of the rocky half-acre which lay at its other end, the three soldiers never entered it again during the fall and winter which followed its discovery. The two blocks of isinglass which they had brought away on their first visit were ample for their purpose; and as soon as they had secured their supply of fat pine-knots for light in the long winter evenings, they set about constructing two windows to take the place of the sliding boards which closed those openings in the cold, snowy days. It is true, they could not look out through the new windows, but much light could enter where all had been darkness before. Time was nothing to the soldiers in these late autumn days; and, indeed, the more of it they could spend on any work they undertook, the more such work contributed to their contentment and happiness. They wished to have their windows ornamental as well as useful; and it was Philip's suggestion that they should try an imitation of stained glass.