Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/155

Rh So saying he tossed. But the result was unsatisfactory. Twice tails were uppermost: once heads. To any one else the former would have decided the point, but to him, being the man he was, it was the latter.

Rising to his feet in the laboured fashion peculiar to his kind, he shouldered his swag, and at once struck into the road directly facing him—as before, followed by the Shadow. It was time, as he could see by the wrathful sky above him, and heard by the soughing of the ti-tree on either side. To increase the gloom rain began to fall, and, before he had gone a quarter of a mile, the short twilight of semi-tropical regions faded, and night fell.

Difficult as it was to proceed, he walked a mile before he paused to rest. Then, soaked to the skin and exhausted, he sought the shelter of a group of trees, standing near the edge of a field, and glanced about him to discover where he was, the Shadow halting not six paces distant. So far as he could judge he was no nearer a settlement than when he started, and could only suppose that, in the darkness, he had turned off the main road without being aware of it. What to do under the circumstances he had no idea. His long inactivity in the prison had enervated him to such an extent, that he was as unfitted for continuous walking as he was to stand the hardships of a night in the open. To go on was, therefore, out of the question; to stay where he was not less so. Hence he was forced to think of finding shelter, however scanty.

To seek it at any of the farmhouses, whose lights twinkled here and there through the murky atmosphere, was out of the question. His appearance was now so well known in the district that the mere sight of him would not only chill sympathy in the kindest, but be the signal for an instant order to be off, or for Rh