The clergyman went out, and I heard him emptying
the magazine of his rifle. When he returned he sat nearer the door than
before, and from that moment until we left the tent he never once took
his eyes from the figure of Dr. Silence, silhouetted there against sky
and canvas.
And, meanwhile, the wind came steadily over the sea and opened the mist
into lanes and clearings, driving it about like a living thing.
It must have been well after midnight when a low booming sound drew my
attention; but at first the sense of hearing was so strained that it was
impossible exactly to locate it, and I imagined it was the thunder of
big guns far out at sea carried to us by the rising wind. Then Maloney,
catching hold of my arm and leaning forward, somehow brought the true
relation, and I realised the next second that it was only a few feet
away.
"Sangree's tent," he exclaimed in a loud and startled whisper.
I craned my head round the corner, but at first the effect of the fog
was so confusing that every patch of white driving about before the wind
looked like a moving tent and it was some seconds before I discovered
the one patch that held steady.
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