girls went to their tents. Ulyth was sharing quarters with
Addie, Lizzie, and Gertrude. She tucked herself up in her blankets, as
she had been taught at camp drill, and then lay quietly for a long,
long time, watching the patch of sky through the tent door.

She seemed only to have been asleep for about an hour, when the patrol
touched her on the shoulder. Instantly she sprang up, broad awake.

"Relieve sentry at west guard," was the order, and the patrol passed on.

It was too dark to see her watch, but Ulyth knew it must be nearly one
o'clock. She hastily donned the warm garments ordered to be worn by
sentries, and hurried away to relieve Helen Cooper. Her post was at the
west end of the camp, where the field merged into a rushy swamp before
it rose into the hill that led towards the farm.

"The password is 'Louvain'," said Helen, retiring, not at all sorry to
seek the comfort of her bed. "One leg of the camp-stool is most rickety,
so I warn you not to lean too hard on it. Good night."

Left alone, Ulyth sat down with extreme caution on the deficient
camp-stool and surveyed the situation. There were clouds across a waning
moon, and it was fairly dark. She could see the outlines of the tents in
black masses behind her; in front the field lay dim and shadowy, with a
mist creeping from the water. Up above, to her right, against an indigo
sky, the Great Bear was standing almost on its head, with its tail in
the air. One of the tests of a Torch-bearer was a knowledge of the
stars, and Ulyth had learnt how to tell the time by the position of this
particular constellation. She made a rapid calculation now, reckoning
from the day of the month, and was glad to find it came out correctly.
Cassiopeia's white arms were hidden by the mountains, but the Milky Way
shimmered in the east, and overhead Arcturus blazed as he had done in
the days when the patriarch Job recorded his brilliance. To the extreme
north a patch of light lay behind Penllwyd, where the sun, at this
season hardly dipping far out of sight, worked his course round to the
east again. How quiet it was! The silence was almost oppressive. The
gentle lap of the tiny waves on the lake was not equal to the rush of
the stream at The Woodlands. Not even a night-bird called. The camp was
absolutely still and slumbering.

Ulyth rose and paced about for a while. It was too cold to sit still
long. She must only use the camp-stool when she needed a rest.

"Sentries ought