I am going across the sand up
toward the fort, and will come round to you."
He stepped over the soft sand towards the trees and was lost to sight.
The bombardment had now ceased, and though he heard a confused noise from
the direction of the fort, there was no sound from the town, and he
concluded that the people had fled either into the fort or away into the
country. It appeared at present that the whole stretch of land between
the town and the fort was deserted.
He had not walked far when he was startled by hearing, as he fancied, a
stealthy footstep following him. Gripping in his right hand the pistol he
had brought as a precaution, and with the left loosening his sword in its
scabbard, he faced round with his back to the wall of a shed in which
Angria's ropes were made, and waited, listening intently. But the sound,
slight as it was, had ceased. Possibly it had been made by some animal,
though that seemed scarcely likely: the noise and the glare from the
burning buildings must surely have scared away all the animals in the
neighborhood. Finding that the sound was not repeated, he went on again.
Some minutes later, his ears on the stretch, he fancied he caught the
same soft furtive tread: but when he stopped and listened and heard
nothing, he believed that he must have been mistaken, and set it down as
an echo of his own excitement.
Stepping warily, he picked his way through the darkness, faintly
illuminated by the distant glow of the conflagration.
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