Never for an instant was he at the
same angle. Backwards, forwards he swung, with a tingling jar at the
end of each sway, until he ached from his neck to his knees. It caught
him across the shoulders, it caught him down the spine, it gripped him
over the loins, it marked the lower line of his ribs with one heavy,
dull throb. He clutched here and there with his hand to try and ease
the strain upon his muscles. He drew up his knees, altered his seat,
and set his teeth with a grim determination to go through with it should
it kill him. His head was splitting, his flayed face smarting, and
every joint in his body aching as if it were dislocated. But he forgot
all that when, with the rising of the moon, he heard the clinking of
horses' hoofs down upon the track by the river, and knew that, unseen by
them, he had already got well abreast of his companions. But he was
hardly halfway, and the time already eleven.
All day the needles had been ticking away without intermission in the
little corrugated iron hut which served as a telegraph station at
Sarras. With its bare walls and its packing-case seats, it was none the
less for the moment one of the vital spots upon the earth's surface, and
the crisp, importunate ticking might have come from the world-old clock
of Destiny.
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