With white face
pressed close against the glass of the smoking-room window, which looked
directly out upon the front path, stood Borkins, watching them as though
he were watching a line of ghosts on their nightly prowl.
"Good Gawd!" he ejaculated, as he discerned their dark figures and the
light of the doctor's torch. "Every one of 'em gone--_every one_!" And
then, trembling, he went back to bed.
But the doctor did not look back, and so the little party proceeded upon
its way in comparative silence until the edge of the Fens was reached.
Here, with one accord, they stopped for further instructions. Three
torches made the spot upon which they stood like daylight. The doctor
bent his eyes downward.
"Now, boys," he said briskly. "Keep your eyes sharp for footprints. Wynne
must have struck off here into the Fens, it's the most direct course. He
wouldn't have been such a duffer as to walk too far out of his way--if he
was bent upon going there at all.... Hello! Here's the squelchy mark of a
man's boot, and here's another!"
They followed the track onward, with perfect ease, for the marshy ground
was sodden and took every footprint deeply.
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