Ellary Warden¹

{135}

LE Grand Couronné was the last of the mountain peaks to disappear in the darkness that so quickly follows twilight² in Greece. To Valentine Latimer, excited by malaria³, it seemed to curtesy as it went. He raised himself on to the fire-step, took off the gauze mask that protected his face from mosquitoes, and handed it to his orderly.

“Won’t you keep it on, sir?” asked his orderly; “the mosquitoes are out in their millions to-night.”

“It’ll make no difference,” said Latimer, “and I can’t breathe with that damned thing smothering⁴ me.... How heavy the air is!”

His servant stood behind him leaning with his back against the rock trench⁵-wall, his head—so tall was he—almost touching⁶ the parados.

“We’d better visit the sentry⁷-groups, Morgan,” said Latimer.

The man had slung⁸ his rifle, but Latimer did not move. He was listening to the fitful rustle⁹ of the trees immediately overhead. The sound reminded him of his father’s garden at home—the garden in which he had spent the happiest hours of his life. The little breeze went its way, and almost immediately a sour smell stole up from the trench. Into his fevered brain came the word “decay ... decay,” and stayed there like a drop of poison.

“Everything is strangely quiet,” he observed.

“Yes, sir,” said Morgan.

And, indeed, the silence was as heavy as the heavy air. Latimer had the curious feeling that he and his orderly were the only people in that country-side, and when a cough broke upon the stillness, he started.{136}

分享到：