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Five minutes' delay, however, I allowed myself. I spent it in ransacking the library until I discovered a medical book which gave a description of strychnine poisoning. The house which the Belgians occupied in the village was quite close to the park gates. One could save time by taking a narrow path through the long grass, which cut off the detours of the winding drive.
Some of these were armed with terrible thorns, and as they had no hatchets to chop their way through them they were often obliged to make detours to escape these obstacles.
All these men, whether skeptics or mystics, looked back for the rest of their lives on that night as on something unnatural. They sat still or started up abruptly, and paced the great garden in long detours, so that it seemed that no three of them were together at a time, and none knew who would be his companion; yet their rambling remained within the same dim and mazy space.
At other times they drew back in instinctive repulsion, as they felt the rigid outlines of a dead body. But whatever detours they had to make, they managed by touch or whisper to keep together, and although their progress was slow it was still progress, and they knew that they were steadily nearing the German lines.
Burns stopped to answer a series of questions as to the best route toward a neighbouring city. There were matters of road mending and detours to be made plain to the inquirers, so the detention occupied a full five minutes, during which the chauffeur got down and came to Burns's side with a road map, with which the two wrestled after the fashion usually made necessary by such aids to travel.
Precipices often bounded the valleys, lying directly across their track; and as these could not be scaled, it was necessary to make long détours to pass them, so that some days they actually advanced less than five miles upon their journey.
We all turned toward the door as Burke, dust-covered and tired, stamped in, followed by a man whose face was bandaged and bloody. "I heard shots. Is it all over?" But we paid no attention to Burke. There was Whitney, considerably banged up by the fall, but lucky to be alive. "I tried to shake him," he explained, catching sight of Norton. "But he stuck to us, even on our detours.
Having mentioned Brattleboro as the point at which they were to foregather with Red Leary, the Governor did not refer to the matter again, but chose routes and made detours without explanation. As a matter of fact they swung round Brattleboro and saw only the faint blue of its smoke from the western side.
Often some busy chief gave them a secret order, and went on his way; and all, notwithstanding their detours, were assembling by degrees in the wealthiest quarters of Lima, in proportion as the Limanians were scattered abroad in the country. Don Vegal, absorbed in his own researches, soon forgot this singular state of things.
The only hardship in the way of grub was on the horses, the herbage being scanty at times, so that as much speed as was desired could not be made, detours being necessary in order to come upon fodder for the steeds. This caused them to spend more time on the route than they desired and each hour of delay made the boy ranchers more and more apprehensive for the safety of their captured cousins.
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