So, without change but from
pause to outbreak, outbreak to pause, nights and days went by in
the siege.
Nothing happened. One morning, indeed, the fragments of another blunt
arrow came to light, broken underfoot and trampled into the dust. The
paper scroll, in tatters, held only a few marks legible through dirt and
heel-prints: "Listen--work fast--many bags--watch closely." And still
nothing happened to explain the warning.
That night Heywood even made a sortie, and stealing from the main gate
with four coolies, removed to the river certain relics that lay close
under the wall, and would soon become intolerable. He had returned
safely, with an ancient musket, a bag of bullets, a petroleum squirt,
and a small bundle of pole-axes, and was making his tour of the
defenses, when he stumbled over Rudolph, who knelt on the ground under
what in old days had been the chapel, and near what now was
Kempner's grave.
He was not kneeling in devotion, for he took Heywood by the arm, and
made him stoop.
"I was coming," he said, "to find you. The first night, I saw coolies
working in the clay-pit. Bend, a moment over.
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