e could hardly
climb down on to the ground. He slept that night amidst such a music of
birds as he had never believed possible one country could produce.
Through the night of the twenty-sixth he and Jose Medina watched; their
lanterns ready to their hands. Lights there were in plenty on the sea,
but they were the lights of acetylene lamps used by the fishermen of
those parts to attract the fish; and the morning broke with the
lighthouse flashing wanly over a smooth sea, pale as fine jade.

"There are three more nights," said Hillyard. He was a little dispirited
after the fatigue of the day before and the long, empty vigil on the top
of the day.

The next watch brought no better fortune. There was no moon; the night
was of a darkness so clear that the stars threw pale and tremulous paths
over the surface of the water, and from far away the still air vibrated
from time to time with the throbbing of propellers as the ships without
lights passed along the coast.

Hillyard rose from the blanket on which he and Jose Medina had been
lying during the night. It had been spread on a patch of turf in a break
of the hill some hundreds of feet above the sea. He was cold. The
blanket was drenched and the dew hung like a frost on bush and grass.

"It looks as if they had found out," he said.

"This is only the second night," said Jose Medina.

"It all means so much to me," replied Hillyard, shivering in the
briskness of the morning.

"Courage, the little Marteen!" cried Jose Medina. "After breakfast and a
few hours' sleep, we shall take a rosier view."

Hillyard, however, could not compose himself to those few hours. The
dread lest the Germans should have discovered the interception of their
letters weighed too heavily upon him. Even in the daylight he needs
must look out over that placid sunlit sea and imagine here and there
upon its surface the low tower and grey turtle-back of a submarine.
Success here might be so great a thing, so great a saving of lives, so
dire a blow to the enemy. Somehow that day slowly dragged its burning
hours to sunset, the coolness of the evening came, and the swift
darkness upon its heels, and once more, high up on the hillside, the
vigil was renewed. And at half-past one in the morning, far away at sea,
a green light, bright as an emerald, flashed thrice and was gone.

"Did I not say to you, 'Have courage'?" said Jose Medina.

"Quick! the Lanterns!" replied Hillyard. "The red first! Good! Now