The surety of impending battle still weighed upon them. Then it came that Shackles turned seriously ill. Suddenly he dropped his own and much of Point's traps upon the trail, wriggled out of his blanket-roll, flung it away, and took seat heavily at the roadside. They saw with surprise that his face was pale as death, and yet streaming with sweat. "Boys," he said in his ordinary voice, "I'm clean played out. I can't go another step. You fellows go on, and leave me to come as soon as I am able." "Oh, no, that wouldn't do at all," said Little Nell and Tailor together. Point moved over to a soft place, and dropped amid whatever traps he was himself carrying. "Don't know whether it's ancestral or merely from the--sun--but I've got a stroke," said Shackles, and gently slumped over to a prostrate position before either Little Nell or Tailor could reach him. Thereafter Shackles was parental; it was Little Nell and Tailor who were really suffering from a stroke, either ancestral or from the sun. "Put my blanket-roll under my head, Nell, me son," he said gently. "There now! That is very nice. It is delicious. Why, I'm all right, only--only tired." He closed his eyes, and something like an easy slumber came over him. Once he opened his eyes. "Don't trouble about me," he remarked. But the two fussed about him, nervous, worried, discussing this plan and that plan. It was Point who first made a business-like statement. Seated carelessly and indifferently upon his soft place, he finally blurted out: "Say! Look here! Some of us have got to go on. We can't all stay here. Some of us have got to go on." It was quite true; the _Eclipse_ could take no account of strokes. In the end Point and Tailor went on, leaving Little Nell to bring on Shackles as soon as possible. The latter two spent many hours in the grass by the roadside. They made numerous abrupt acquaintances with passing staff officers, privates, muleteers, many stopping to inquire the wherefore of the death-faced figure on the ground. Favours were done often and often, by peer and peasant--small things, of no consequence, and yet warming. It was dark when Shackles and Little Nell had come slowly to where they could hear the murmur of the army's bivouac. "Shack," gasped Little Nell to the man leaning forlornly upon him, "I guess we'd better bunk down here where we stand." "All right, old boy. Anything you say," replied Shackles, in the bass and hollow voice which arrives with such condition. They crawled into some bushes, and distributed their belongings upon the ground. Little Nell spread out the blankets, and generally played housemaid. Then they lay down, supperless, being too weary to eat. The men slept. At dawn Little Nell awakened and looked wildly for Shackles, whose empty blanket was pressed flat like a wet newspaper on the ground. But at nearly the same moment Shackles appeared, elate. "Come on," he cried; "I've rustled an invitation for breakfast."