A Lodge in the Wilderness

CHAPTER V.-1

CHAPTER V.

THE stars, which had been shining with a frosty brilliance, were paling towards dawn before Hugh was sufficiently awake to see where he was going. He had been routed out by Alastair Graham in the small hours, and had somehow found himself on a horse, in a great blanket-coat, with half-a-dozen dusky figures trotting alongside. He had been jogging on for half an hour before he finally rubbed sleep out of his eyes, and, drinking long draughts of the electric air, roused himself to some interest in life. The sky was changing from black to some ineffable shade of purple, and the track among the mimosa thorns was beginning to glimmer ahead in a fantastic grey. Soon remoter objects distinguished themselves—a kopje, a big tree, a jag of rock. And then over the crest of the far downs ca