They could hardly tell that unless somebody
round about here sent up some sort of signal. But, somehow, I rather
fancy that somebody will."
With that he got up from the table, and they remounted their
machines and went eastward into the advancing twilight of evening.
The levels of the landscape were repeated in flat strips of floating
cloud and the last colors of day clung to the circle of the horizon.
Receding farther and farther behind them was the semicircle of the
last hills; and it was quite suddenly that they saw afar off the dim
line of the sea. It was not a strip of bright blue as they had seen
it from the sunny veranda, but of a sinister and smoky violet, a
tint that seemed ominous and dark. Here Horne Fisher dismounted once
more.
"We must walk the rest of the way," he said, "and the last bit of
all I must walk alone."
He bent down and began to unstrap something from his bicycle. It was
something that had puzzled his companion all the way in spite of
what held him to more interesting riddles; it appeared to be several
lengths of pole strapped together and wrapped up in paper. Fisher
took it under his arm and began to pick his way across the turf. The
ground was growing more tumbled and irregular and he was walking
toward a mass of thickets and small woods; night grew darker every
moment.
Pages:
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255