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| that old day and its mortal strife had wrought upon him like wine. "There was one amongst us," he said, "he was our captain, and it's of him I am going to tell the story. Robin tapster, bring me no more ale, but good mulled wine! It's cold and getting dark, and I have to drink to a brave man besides"â€" With the old bold laugh in his eyes, he raised himself, for the moment as strong as I that held him. "Drink to that English- man, all of ye!" he cried, "and not in filthy ale, but in good, gen- tlemanly sack! I'll pay the score. Here's to him, brave hearts! Here's to my master!" With his hand at his mouth, and his story untold, he fell back. I held him in my arms until the brief struggle was over, and then laid his body down upon the earth. It might have been one of the clock. For a little while I sat beside him, with my head bowed in my hands. Then I straightened his limbs and crossed his hands upon his breast, and kissed him upon the brow, and left him lying dead in the forest. It was hard going through the blackness of the night-time woods. Once I was nigh sucked under in a great swamp, and once I stumbled into some hole or pit in the earth, and for a time thought that I had broken my leg. The night was very dark, and sometimes when I could not see the stars, I lost my way, and went to the right or the left, or even back upon my track. Though I heard the wolves, they did not come nigh me. Just before daybreak, I crouched behind a log, and watched a party of savages file past like shadows of the night. At last the dawn came, and I could press on more rapidly. For two days and two nights I had not slept; for a day and a night I had not tasted food. As the sun climbed the heavens, a thousand black spots, like summer gnats, danced between his face and my weary eyes. The forest laid stumbling-blocks be- fore me, and drove me back, and made me wind in and out when I would have had my path straighter than an arrow. When the ground allowed I ran; when I must break my way, panting, through undergrowth so dense and stubborn that it seemed some enchanted thicket, where each twig snapped but to be on the instant stiff in place again, I broke it with what pa- tience I might; when I must turn aside for this or that obstacle |
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