The Taking of Helen by John Masefield — page 66: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

54 THE TAKING OF HELEN through the nooning here. You’ve a look of not hav- ing slept, which might make people think.”’ Though he did not know it, he was so dizzy from want of sleep, that voices seemed speaking in his ears, telling him to do this or that. The heat of the summer day grew greater over his head. The aspens, that had been pattering, were quieter, the poultry ruffled into the dust in shadow, only the grasshoppers and the lizards seemed alive. ‘The purr of the grasshoppers, the creaking of the crickets in the trees, the whisper of the aspens, and the trickle of the water at his feet, mixed into a noise of sighing, into a noise like the breath- ing of a sleeper. ‘“‘I will lie down,” he said to himself. “T will lie down among the tamarisks for a few min- utes. That will refresh me, and be at the same time no danger, for of course I shall not sleep.”’ So he lay down among the tamarisks and noticed their tough- ness and their glitter, and covered his eyes against the glare of the sun that shone through them, and in- stantly was asleep fathoms deep. In his sleep he had some feeling that Myrtle ought to have brought him food; then this changed to the certainty that something was wrong, and he leaped up, feeling for weapons. He saw at a glance that the sun had southed and was westing, and that he had slept for four hours at the least. There was alarm in the air and a noise of horsemen on the trot. Peering out from cover, he saw soldiers dismounting at the door. CORANICLOOKS»aeO