The glare still reddened the sky behind: but either the firing had ceased or they had passed beyond sound of it.

At any rate, they heard only the water lapping in the dykes and the wind that howled over the wastes around.
Tristram had long since lost his hat, and his nose was bleeding from a sharp blow against his horse's neck.

He was trying to stanch the flow when the chimes of a clock pealed down the wind from somewhere ahead and upon his right.

His father halted again, and after scanning the gloom for a minute uttered again the three calls that were like the wailing of a gull.
Again the signal was answered, this time from their left, and the spark of a lantern appeared.

"Dismount, my son," said the Captain, setting the example and leading his horse by the bridle towards the light; "we leave our horses here." "For others ?" "No, for a canal-boat." "This country may be flat," thought Tristram; "but decidedly the travelling is not monotonous." As he drew near the lantern, he saw indeed that they were on the edge of a canal, wherein lay a long black barge, with a boy on horseback waiting on the tow-path, a little ahead of it.