The emotion had been too great for them.

That terrible, half hour facing death--the sudden revulsion at their wonderful deliverance--completely prostrated them, and they felt exhausted and weak, as if after some great exertion.

On the previous occasions in which they had seen great danger together--at the mill of Dettingheim, the fight on the Dykes, the scuttling of the boat--they had been actively engaged.

Their energies were fully employed, and they had had no time to think.

Now they had faced death in all his terrors, but without the power of action; and both felt they would far rather go through the three first risks again, than endure five minutes of that terrible watching the fire burn up.
Hugh was the first to speak when, nearly an hour after starting, they emerged from the wood into the plain at the foot of the hill.
"My mother used to say, Master Rupert, that curses, like chickens, came home to roost, and surely we have proved it's the case with blessings.