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144 away, the sentinel watched, he made off with swift steps toward the village, keeping  always to the dark marge of the forest.

He speedily found that haste and quiet would not agree, for in the gloom he caught  a foot in a tangle of root or vine and measured his length, exclaiming in spite of himself when his chin came rudely down on a  stone. Thereafter he went more slowly. When a half-hour had gone by, a faint flush of light met his sight. It was, he believed, the dim yellow glare of a fire in the village  showing above the wall. He went on more cautiously, the light drawing nearer yet becoming more faint, as if the fire were dying. At last he imagined that he could when crouching to the ground make out the fort  perhaps a quarter of a mile away. He dared go no closer lest there be guards set outside  the palisade, and so he turned into the forest,  first fixing his gaze on a great star more  brilliant than its fellows and burning with a  redder light that hung in the heavens to the  southeast. He would be guided by that, he thought. But once in the forest the orb was instantly lost to him, for here there were  pines and hemlocks growing so closely together that only now and again could he