We can't miss that even on a night like this." Ralph had struck a light with his flint and steel, and looked at his watch at the point where they turned off from the road, and he did the same thing two or three times as they went along.
"It's an hour and twenty minutes since we turned off, Mr.Fitzgibbon.
Even allowing for our stoppages when we have got off the path, we ought to be near the turning now." "Yes, I fancy we are not far off now, sir.

I can feel that we are rising more sharply, and there is a rise in the last hundred yards or so before we reach the place where the road forks.

We had better go a little more slowly now, sir." Another five minutes there was a stumble and a fall in front of Ralph.
"Halt!" he exclaimed sharply.

"What is it, Mr.Fitzgibbon ?" "I have fallen over the pile of stones," the officer said, "and hurt myself confoundedly." "Don't you think we had better halt till daylight ?" "I think we can keep on, sir.

The nearer we get there the better; and if we should miss the path we can halt then and wait till daybreak." "Well, we can do that," Ralph agreed.
"I will go on ahead, sir, twenty or thirty yards at a time and then speak, and you can bring the men on to me, then I will go on again.