The punt was now travelling so swiftly that the lad had scarce time to throw himself down before the whole of the danger was apparent. The two infantry-men were lying upon a bank of grass at the border of a thicket; their rifles were nesting against the trunk of a chestnut-tree; there were the embers of a fire smouldering; a couple of empty wine-bottles had rolled from the place of picnic to the very edge of the stream; but the men themselves were fast in sleep, their heads covered with their forage-caps, and their sandals showing in the grass as the shoes of men who lie flat upon their backs in the enjoyment of unbroken rest.
"Prince," said he," there are only two of them, and they're sleeping!"
"Are you sure of that?" whispered Messenger.
"There's no doubt of it. I can see their feet sticking up in the grass, and they've pulled their hats over their eyes."
"Then set the boat in the straight, and drop when you're near enough. If she's in the middle of the stream, she should go down easy. What's the river here?"
"Twenty yards, and thick with rushes," replied Fisher; "but the current's huge."
"All the better; we'll go the faster!"
He said no more, but waited expectantly while Fisher kept the craft off the reeds, and let her go swinging down the very centre of the water-way. They were now within fifty yards of the sentries; but still the sleepers lay motionless, the flies buzzing about their ears, the shade deep upon their faces. Would they wake? The lad's brain was on fire as he asked the question.
At the very foot of the thicket's bank, bush and bramble flourished, spreading upon the water. The river here ran almost at a level with the meadows, but was thick with weeds at it's shallow sides; and when the punt came quite to the place where the sentries lay, she touched the long grasses and ground over them with a sound of scraping which made the two within her shiver as men struck with cold. So loud was the noise of her passage that one of the sentries turned in his sleep, and then sat up on his hams dreamily. Had it not been for the thick bush which lay between the stream and his camping-place the voyage would have ended upon the spot; but it chanced that the tangle of weeds held the punt momentarily still; the noise ceased; the man saw nothing; he kicked his companion, swore at him, drank something from a bottle, and composed himself to sleep again. Then Fisher, who lay in the prow like a cat, used his arms with silent strength, and thrust the unwieldy tub again into the stream, where she was caught quickly and whirled onward through the meadows of maize to the heart of the great valley below the mountains.
For another hour the weary men endured the confinement of the punt and the full heat of the unclouded sun. They said little to one another, for the reaction of the excitement was strong upon them; nor did they see a single soldier, or pass any other village, until they were three or four miles from the first coming-out of the tunnel. But, an hour after noon they entered a great pool, which Fisher called a glade of the waters—a pool arched over with poplars and tropic-like leaves, and bordered with ripe green banks which were almost hid by the blue and the scarlet and the yellow of innumerable flowers. So seductive was the haven, so full of dreamy, silence, so alluring to one who could scarce stand with fatigue, that Fisher brought the punt against its banks, and, not daring to tell all its delights to a man who could see none of them, he said—
"There's a fine place to land, if yon think it's time."
"It's time enough, if the place is right," said the man. "What will there be on the banks here?"
"There's an open wood to your left hand, and a thicket upon the far shore. From what I can see of it a road should pass near the trees here."
"Let's get out, then. I shall die of cramp if I lie here another hour; but you'll have to set my feet on the banks, and you won't be leaving me—to reconnoitre or any thing like that?"
"I'll not leave you a minute," said Fisher; "it's my promise."
The man mumbled something and took the hand stretched out to him. His fear of solitude was, both then and for months afterwards, one of the most curious symptoms of his infliction. The dark in which henceforth he was to live so acted upon his nerves that he could hardly compel himself to let Fisher leave him even for the space of a minute. He slept with his companion's arm near to his; and now, when he had come ashore, and lay down upon the soft grass, he had no rest until the lad took one of his hands and held it. And so, with their heads pillowed upon the grass, and the shade of the willows to give them cool, the two, worn and weary, and very near to tears, slept though the heat of the day, and until the angelus was ringing in the villages.