The lazy, feathery clouds were yet drifting before the moon and stars.
He saw to his right the gleam of a bayonet as a sentinel walked back and forth and he saw another to his left.

His heart beat high with hope.

He was merely a mote in infinite night, and surely they could not see him.
He walked swiftly along in the shadow of the house, and then sprang into the conservatory, where he crouched between two tall rose bushes.

He waited there a little while, breathing hard, but he had not been observed.

From his rosy shelter he could still see the sentinels on either side, walking up and down, undisturbed.