was no answer; the hills were as quiet as the desert.
The night lamp was uninjured and again discipline asserted itself. He adjusted it. Then taking off his shirt, he wrung out the sweat, and rolled it into a cushion for Carson's head. Rising, he stretched his cramped limbs, drawing in deep breaths of the keen night air. With night, coolness came with a suddenness almost startling. In ten minutes, though the rock was still almost unbearable to the touch, he was shivering, his teeth chattering.
He had thought the day long. He did not know the seconds could drag so slowly by, as he sat down again, straining tensely in the dark; now to hear a rumor of the British approach, now to discern some stealthy sound telling that the Turks were stealing down the pass. For eighteen hours he had been without water, the greater part of the time under the fiercest heat in Asia. He had heard his mates struck down in that wild mêlée in the dark, and had barely won his way by stealth back to the ledge where Perkins and Carson were left with the instruments. Their fire had stemmed the rush of the Turks, uncertain what strength was there. The last to die had done so, horribly, within reach of his outstretched hand—and he unable to do a thing.
Through the day he had had something to
