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We stretched ourselves out, elbow to elbow. The one in the dark corner blew out his candle. "May the war look slippy and get finished!" mumbled Orango. "If only they'll let me transfer to the cyclists," Margat replied. We said no more, each forming that same great wandering prayer and some little prayer like Margat's.
Corney was the eldest son of a large family. The old folks lived at Petersay, twenty-five miles to the southward. He had taken up a "claim" to carve his own home out of the woods at Fenebonk, and his grown sisters, Margat, staid and reliable, and Loo, bright and witty, were keeping house for him. Thorburn Alder was visiting them.
He lay there he knew not how long, but was awakened in broad daylight by a loud, cheery voice: "Hello! Hello! are ye all dead? Loo! Thor! Margat!" He had no strength to answer, but there was a trampling of horses outside, a heavy step, the door was forced open, and in strode Corney, handsome and hearty as ever. But what a flash of horror and pain came over his face on entering the silent shanty!
Among these shades of the cave an abode of the first men as it seemed I saw the hand start forth of him who existed on the spectacle of the fields and the sea, who was trying to show it and to seize it; or I saw around a vague halo four card-players stubbornly bent upon finding again something of an ancient and peaceful attachment in the faces of the cards; or I saw Margat flourish a Socialist paper that had fallen from Termite's pocket, and burst into laughter at the censored blanks it contained.
At noon, which Margat knew by the shadow of a certain rampike falling on the spring, a clear notification to draw fresh water for the table, Loo would hang a white rag on a pole, and Corney, seeing the signal, would return from summer fallow or hayfield, grimy, swarthy, and ruddy, a picture of manly vigor and honest toil.
The after-fate of the Holy Land may be told in a few words. The Christians, unmindful of their past sufferings and of the jealous neighbours they had to deal with, first broke the truce by plundering some Egyptian traders near Margat. The Sultan immediately revenged the outrage by taking possession of Margat, and war once more raged between the nations.
We watch, outspread on our bellies, or kneeling, or sitting lower down, with our empty rifles beside us. Margat reflects, shakes his head and says: "Wire would have stopped them just now. But we had no wire." "And machine-guns, too! but where are they, the M.G.s?" We have a distinct feeling that there has been an enormous blunder in the command.
Half a week had scarcely gone before all three of them, Margat, Loo, and Thor, were taken down with a yet more virulent form of chills and fever. Corney had had every other a "well day," but with these three there were no "well days" and the house became an abode of misery. Seven days passed, and now Margat could not leave her bed and Loo was barely able to walk around the house.
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