By and by the road was
completely deserted. The lights no longer shone from the lower
floors of the wayside cottages, but, after lingering for a while in
the bedroom windows, vanished altogether. The whole country slept.
Then followed hour after hour of dogged walking. A thick haze
encircled the moon, and under it a denser exhalation began to creep
up from the sodden land. In the silence the fog gathered till it
seemed to bar the way like a regiment of white ghosts, wavering and
closing its ranks as the wind stirred over the levels. This wind
breathed on his right cheek steadily. He never guessed that it came
from the sea, nor remembered that when he ran towards the canal it
had been blowing full in his face.
It was in the chilliest hour--the one before dawn--that a voice
suddenly called out from the fog ahead:
"_Qui va la?_"
Tristram halted, then took another step forward in some uncertainty.
The voice repeated its challenge in an angrier tone; and this time
our hero stood stock-still. The misfortune was that he knew not a
word of the French language.
Once more the voice called. Then a trigger clicked, a yellow flare
leapt out on the fog with a roar, and something sang by Tristram's
ear. He jumped off the road and pelted across the meadow to his
right.
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