Still, we may as well keep a bundle of firewood ready here." The shots from the marsh, though trivial and scattering, were like a signal; for all about the nunnery, from a ring of hiding-places, the noise of last night broke out afresh.

The sun lowered through a brown, burnt haze, the night sped up from the ocean, covering the sky with sudden darkness, in which stars appeared, many and cool, above the torrid earth and the insensate turmoil.

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.