But I was by this time so weary that I could have slept twelve hours at a stretch; I had the taste of sleep in my throat; my joints slept even when my mind was waking; the hot smell of the heather, and the drone of the wild bees, were like possets to me; and every now and again I would give a jump and find I had been dozing.
The last time I woke I seemed to come back from farther away, and thought the sun had taken a great start in the heavens.

I looked at the sprig of heath, and at that I could have cried aloud: for I saw I had betrayed my trust.

My head was nearly turned with fear and shame; and at what I saw, when I looked out around me on the moor, my heart was like dying in my body.

For sure enough, a body of horse-soldiers had come down during my sleep, and were drawing near to us from the south-east, spread out in the shape of a fan and riding their horses to and fro in the deep parts of the heather.
When I waked Alan, he glanced first at the soldiers, then at the mark and the position of the sun, and knitted his brows with a sudden, quick look, both ugly and anxious, which was all the reproach I had of him.
"What are we to do now ?" I asked.
"We'll have to play at being hares," said he.

"Do ye see yon mountain ?" pointing to one on the north-eastern sky.
"Ay," said I.
"Well, then," says he, "let us strike for that.