seemed to be perhaps, in a dull, misty way, and it was
much more pleasant to lie listening to the partridges calling out on the
moor--that curiously harsh cry, answered by others at a distance, and
watch the sky growing gradually grey, and the clouds in the west change
from gold to crimson, then to purple, and then turn inky black, while
now from somewhere not far away he heard the flapping of wings and a
hoarse, crocketing sound which puzzled him for the moment, but as it was
repeated here and there, he knew it was the pheasants which haunted that
part of the forest, flying up to their roosts for the night, to be safe
from prowling animals--four-legged, or biped who walked the woods by
night armed with guns.

For it did not matter; nothing mattered now. He was tired; and then all
was blank.

Sleep or stupor, one or the other. Vane had been insensible for hours
when he woke up with a start to find that lie was aching and that his
head burned. He was puzzled for a few minutes before he could grasp his
position. Then all he had passed through came, and he lay wondering
whether any search had been made.

But still that did not trouble him. He wanted to lie still and listen
to the sounds in the wood, and to watch the bright points of light just
out through the narrow opening where he had seen the broad red face of
the sun dip down, lower and lower out of sight. The intense darkness,
too, beneath the beeches was pleasant and restful, and though there were
no partridges calling now, there were plenty of sounds to lie and listen
to, and wonder what they could be.

At another time he would have felt startled to find himself alone out
there in the darkness, but in his strangely dulled state now every
feeling of alarm was absent, and a sensation akin to curiosity filled
his brain. Even the two gipsy lads were forgotten. He had once fancied
that they might return, but he had had reasoning power enough left to
argue that they would have come upon him long enough before, and to feel
that he must have beaten them completely,--frightened them away.

And as he lay he awoke to the fact that all was not still in that black
darkness, for there was a world of active, busy life at work. Now there
came, like a whispering undertone, a faint clicking noise as the leaves
moved. There were tiny feet passing over him; beetles of some kind that
shunned the light; wood-lice and pill millipedes, hurrying here and
there in search of f