Part 12 (1/2)

When I started out again I felt very stiff and the cold see intense This puzzledwarm-blooded by nature, it never used to worry ht chillier than anything I had struck so far in Europe But nowin ht and clear, but a wrack of grey clouds soon covered the sky, and a wind froh the snowy undergrowth I kept longing for bright war days on the veld when the earth was like a great yelloith white roads running to the horizon and a tiny white far in the heart of it, with its blue daht of those baking days on the east coast, when the sea was liketurquoise But ht of warm scented noons on trek, when one dozed in the shadow of the wagon and sniffed the wood-s dinner

From these pleasant pictures I returned to the beastly present-the thick snooods, the lowering sky, wet clothes, a hunted present, and a dismal future I felt miserably depressed, and I couldn't think of anysick

Aboutpursued I cannot explain hohy the feeling caet who have lived much in wild countries My senses, which had been nuan to work double quick

I asked myself what I would do if I were Stue, and pretty well limitless powers He must have found the car in the sandpit and seen ood he and hisa spoor, but I knew that any ordinary Kaffir could have nosed it out easily But he didn't need to do that This was a civilized country full of roads and railways I must some time and somewhere come out of the woods He could have all the roads watched, and the telephone would set everyone on my track within a radius of fifty e I had visited thatFrom the map I learned that it was called Greif, and it was likely to live up to that name with me

Presently I ca well in shelter I climbed to the top and cautiously looked around me Away to the east I saw the vale of a river with broad fields and church-spires West and south the forest rolled unbroken in a wilderness of snowy tree-tops There was no sign of life anywhere, not even a bird, but I knew very well that behindswiftly on et away

There was nothing for it but to go on till I dropped or was taken I shaped my course south with a shade of west in it, for the map showed me that in that direction I would soonest strike the Danube What I was going to do when I got there I didn't trouble to think I had fixed the river as oal and the future must take care of itself

I was now certain that I had fever on acy from Africa, and had come out once or then I ith the battalion in Hampshi+re The bouts had been short for I had known of their co and dosed myself But now I had no quinine, and it looked as if I were in for a heavy go It made me feel desperately wretched and stupid, and I all but blundered into capture

For suddenly I ca to cross it blindly, when a man rode slowly past on a bicycle Luckily I was in the shade of a cluh he was not three yards off I crawled forward to reconnoitre I saw about half a h the forest and every two hundred yards was a bicyclist They wore unifor as sentries

This could only have oneStule of the woods There was no chance of getting across unobserved As I lay there withthat the pursuitme from behind, and that at any moment I would be enclosed between two fires

For more than an hour I stayed there with my chin in the snow I didn't see any way out, and I was feeling so ill that I didn't seem to care Then my chance careat gust of sno from the east In five minutes it was so thick that I couldn't see across the road At first I thought it a new addition to my troubles, and then very slowly I saw the opportunity I slipped down the bank and made ready to cross

I almost blundered into one of the bicyclists He cried out and fell off his ate A sudden access of strength came to me and I darted into the woods on the farther side I kneould be soon sed fro snoould hide my tracks So I put my best foot forward

I must have run miles before the hot fit passed, and I stopped from sheer bodily weakness There was no sound except the crush of falling snow, the wind seeone, and the place was very solemn and quiet But Heavens! how the snow fell! It was partly screened by the branches, but all the sas seemed made of lead, my head burned, and there were fiery pains over all my body I stumbled on blindly, without a notion of any direction, deter to the last For I knew that if I once lay doould never rise again

When I was a boy I was fond of fairy tales, and reat German forests and snow and charcoal burners and woods, and noas fairly in the thick of them There had been wolves, too, and I wondered idly if I should fall in with a pack I felt hed sillily every time Once I dropped into a hole and lay for so If anyone had found ht of the forest grew di, and soon it would be night, a night withouton without the direction of my brain, for my mind was filled with craziness I was like a drunk , for he knows that if he stops he will fall, and I had a sort of bet with myself not to lie down-not at any rate just yet If I lay down I should feel the pain in my head worse Once I had ridden for five days down country with fever one and dance quadrilles before my eyes But then I had more or less keptdafter

Then the trees seeround It was a clearing, and before e restored me to consciousness, and suddenly I felt with horrid intensity the fire in ed to sleep, and I had a notion that a place to sleep was before h a screen of snow the outline of a cottage

I had no fear, only an intolerable longing to lie down Very slowly I reat that I could hardly lift my hand

There were voices within, and a corner of the curtain was lifted from theThen the door opened and a woman stood before me, a woman with a thin, kindly face

'Gruss Gott,' she said, while children peeped from behind her skirts

'Gruss Gott,' I replied I leaned against the door-post, and speech forsook me

She saw my condition 'Come in, Sir,' she said 'You are sick and it is no weather for a sickin the centre of the little kitchen, while three wondering children stared at -fire burned on the hearth The shock of warave me one of those minutes of self-possession which comes sometimes in the middle of a fever

'I am sick, mother, and I have walked far in the storm and lost my way I as ive me a bed'