ur water-bottles,
and get back up here again without being seen. But perhaps, when the
day comes, and if they don't see us, the French will move off, and then
I need only wait patiently and try and find some cottage.--Yes, what is
it?"

He raised himself upon his arm again, for Punch had begun to mutter; but
there was no reply.

"Talking in his sleep," said Pen with a sigh. "Good for him that he can
sleep! Oh, surely it must be near morning now!"

The lad sprang to his knees and placed one hand over his eyes as he
strained himself round, for all at once he caught sight of a tiny speck
as of glowing fire right overhead, and he stared in amazement.

"Why, that can't be daylight!" he thought. "It would appear, of course,
low down in the east, just a faint streak of dawn. That must be some
dull star peering through the clouds. Why, there are two of them," he
said in a whisper; "no, three. Why, it is day coming!" And he uttered
a faint cry of joy as he crouched low again and gazed, so to speak, with
all his might at the wondrous scene of beauty formed by the myriad
specks of orange light which began to spread overhead, and grow and grow
till the mighty dome that seemed supported in a vast curve by the
mountains on either side of the valley became one blaze of light.

"Punch," whispered Pen excitedly, "it's morning! Look, look! How
stupid!" he muttered. "Why should I wake him to pain and misery? Yes,
it is morning, sure enough," he muttered again, for a bugle rang out
apparently close at hand, and was answered from first one direction and
then another, the echoes taking up the notes softly and repeating them
again and again till it seemed to the listener as if he must be lying
with quite an army close at hand awakening to the day.

The light rapidly increased, and Pen began to look in various directions
for danger, wondering the while whether some patch of forest would offer
itself as an asylum somewhere close at hand; but he only uttered a sigh
of relief as he grasped the fact that, while high above them the golden
light was gleaming down from the sun-flecked clouds, the gorges were
still full of purple gloom, and clouds of thick mist were slowly
gathering in the valley-bottom and were being wafted along by the breath
of morn and following the course of the river.

To his great relief too, as the minutes glided by, he found that great
patches of the rolling smoke-like mist rose higher and higher till a
so