Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/337

 at short range. Then he tried to console himself with the thought that his gasoline had held out, that another seven-mile dash would see them pounding their way into Guariqui. And once in Guariqui was safety, and rest, and sleep—above all things, sleep. There would first be good hot coffee, in plenty, and food. And then he would be given a bed somewhere. The thought of that bed seemed the most consoling of all. It suggested a Nirodha of utter indifference after a night of utter anguish; it grew to symbolise an utter Nirvana of rest for his over-wearied body.

But a new fear suddenly stabbed through him as he stooped and laboured so doggedly over his lumbering sticks of logwood. Would daylight come before they were on their way again? Were they to be caught and trapped, after all, by the rising sun?

His watch had run down; in the excitement of the last twenty hours he had neglected to wind it. All sense of time had long since passed from him.

He turned and looked up at the sky. It seemed to him that the great velvet dome studded with silver star-points was less opaque, was more luminous, than it had been. The eastern horizon was shut off from him by a wall of heavy foliage; he could see no telltale line