3: The Danger of Looking into a Pool of Water
After leaving the road the man slackened his pace,
and now went forward, rather deviously, with a dis-
tinct feeling of fatigue. He could not account for
this, though truly the interminable loquacity of that
country doctor offered itself in explanation. Seating
himself upon a rock, he laid one hand upon his
knee, back upward, and casually looked at it. It was
lean and withered. He lifted both hands to his face.
It was seamed and furrowed; he could trace the lines
with the tips of his fingers. How strange!--a mere
bullet-stroke and a brief unconsciousness should not
make one a physical wreck.
'I must have been a long time in hospital,' he
said aloud. 'Why, what a fool I am! The battle was
in December, and it is now summer!' He laughed.
'No wonder that fellow thought me an escaped luna-
tic. He was wrong: I am only an escaped patient.'
At a little distance a small plot of ground enclosed
by a stone wall caught his attention. With no very
definite intent he rose and went to it. In the centre
was a square, solid monument of hewn stone. It
was brown with age, weather-worn at the angles,
spotted with moss and lichen. Between the massive
blocks were strips of grass the leverage of whose roots
had pushed them apart. In answer to the challenge of
this ambitious structure Time had laid his destroy-
ing hand upon it, and it would soon be 'one with
Nineveh and Tyre.
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