From ours, it was less so; and instead of laughing, you might better be thanking your lucky stars that you did not pay more dearly for such folly.

But what brought you here?
Why have you failed to reach the stockade ?" "_Sacre_!" he muttered carelessly, "but I had a fierce enough run for it as it was.

Why did I not reach the stockade?
Because, my friend, I am no real ghost to be invisible in the night, nor am I a bird to fly.
'T was in the shadow of that big building yonder that I ran into a nest of those copper-colored fiends, and 't was nip and tuck which of us won, had I not, by pure good luck, chanced to stumble into this hole, and so escape them.

Perchance they also thought me a ghost, who knows?
But, be that as it may, they were beating the river bank for me in the flesh, when you came creeping here." We lay flat on the floor, the three of us, our eyes fastened upon the faint light that began to stream in through the entrance.

I could hear Burns muttering to himself, as is often the way with men who lead lives of solitude; and every now and then De Croix would shake silently at the recollection of what had just occurred.