I thought for a while last night that I was getting on, but the reaction came all too soon.

I was in my room in the east turret, the room on the _corbeille_, and saw here and there men passing silently and swiftly between the trees as though in secret.

By-and-by I located their meeting-place, which was in a hollow in the midst of the wood just outside the "natural" garden, as the map or plan of the castle calls it.

I stalked that place for all I was worth, and suddenly walked straight into the midst of them.

There were perhaps two or three hundred gathered, about the very finest lot of men I ever saw in my life.