Some, their gaze still fixed on him, moved their lips as if they chewed.

Others looked aside, met their fellows' eyes in a pregnant glance, and slowly returned to him.

But no one spoke.

At his back the flush of dawn was flooding the east, and spreading and waxing brighter.

The air was growing warm; the shore below, from grey, was turning green.
In a minute or two the sun, whose glowing marge already peeped above the low hills of France, would top the horizon.
The man, getting no answer, shifted his feet uneasily.