The hut behind the fern stack.

But how far behind?
how far from it?
The dark slope stretched above us, infinite, immeasurable shrouded in night.

To begin to climb it in search of a tiny hut, possibly well hidden and hard to find in daylight, seemed an endeavour as hopeless as to meet with the needle in the hay! And now while I stood, chilled and doubting, almost despairing, the steps of the troop in the road began to grow audible, began to come nearer.
'Well, Monsieur le Capitaine ?' the man beside me muttered--in wonder why I stood.

'Which way?
or they will be before us yet.' I tried to think, to reason it out; to consider where the hut should be; while the wind sighed through the oaks, and here and there I could hear an acorn fall.

But the thing pressed too close on me; my thoughts would not be hurried, and at last I said at a venture,-- 'Up the hill.