For my part I have long been a fatalist, to a certain extent.

I mean I believe that the individual, or rather the identity which animates him, came out from the Source of all life a long while, perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago, and when his career is finished, perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of years hence, or perhaps to-morrow, will return perfected, but still as an individual, to dwell in or with that Source of Life.

I believe also that his various existences, here or elsewhere, are fore-known and fore-ordained, although in a sense he may shape them by the action of his free will, and that nothing which he can do will lengthen or shorten one of them by a single hour.

Therefore, so far as I am concerned, I have always acted up to the great injunction of our Master and taken no thought for the morrow.
However, in this instance, as in many others of my experience, the morrow took plenty of thought for itself.

Indeed, before the dawn, Hans, who never seemed really to sleep any more than a dog does, woke me up with the ominous information that he heard a sound which he thought was caused by the tramp of hundreds of marching men.
"Where ?" I asked, after listening without avail--to look was useless, for the night was dark as pitch.
He put his ear to the ground and said: "There." I put _my_ ear to the ground, but although my senses are fairly acute, could hear nothing.
Then I sent for the sentries, but these, too, could hear nothing.