Spenser's melancholy, till he came to the conclusion that there was some
mysterious connection between cleverness and unhappiness, and thanking
his stars that he was neither scholar, courtier, nor poet, said grace
over his lump of horseflesh when it arrived, devoured it as if it had
been venison, and then returned to his pacing up and down; but this time
in silence, for the night was drawing on, and there was no need to tell
the Spaniards that any one was awake and watching.

So he began to think about his mother, and how she might be spending
her Christmas; and then about Frank, and wondered at what grand Court
festival he was assisting, amid bright lights and sweet music and gay
ladies, and how he was dressed, and whether he thought of his brother
there far away on the dark Atlantic shore; and then he said his prayers
and his creed; and then he tried not to think of Rose Salterne, and of
course thought about her all the more. So on passed the dull hours, till
it might be past eleven o'clock, and all lights were out in the battery
and the shipping, and there was no sound of living thing but the
monotonous tramp of the two sentinels beside him, and now and then a
grunt from the party who slept under arms some twenty yards to the rear.

So he paced to and fro, looking carefully out now and then over the
strip of sand-hill which lay between him and the fort; but all was blank
and black, and moreover it began to rain furiously.

Suddenly he seemed to hear a rustle among the harsh sand-grass. True,
the wind was whistling through it loudly enough, but that sound was
not altogether like the wind. Then a soft sliding noise; something had
slipped down a bank, and brought the sand down after it. Amyas stopped,
crouched down beside a gun, and laid his ear to the rampart, whereby
he heard clearly, as he thought, the noise of approaching feet; whether
rabbits or Christians, he knew not, but he shrewdly guessed the latter.

Now Amyas was of a sober and business-like turn, at least when he was
not in a passion; and thinking within himself that if he made any noise,
the enemy (whether four or two-legged) would retire, and all the sport
be lost, he did not call to the two sentries, who were at the opposite
ends of the battery; neither did he think it worth while to rouse the
sleeping company, lest his ears should have deceived him, and the whole
camp turn out to repulse the attack of a buck rabbit.

So he crouched lower and lower be