"I'm going off for a tramp." Pete was sunken as well as ashen; he looked
dead. "Do you suppose they'll hurt themselves pulling against those
ropes?" he asked tonelessly.
"Let them struggle for a while," Ralph advised. Like the rest of them,
Ralph was exhausted-looking and pale. But at intervals he swaggered and
glowed. With his strange, new air of triumph and his white teeth
glittering through his dark mustache, he was more than ever like some
huge predatory cat. "Serves them right! They've taken it out of us for
three months."
Billy did not speak, but he swayed as he followed Frank. He fell on his
bed when they reached the camp. He lay there all night motionless,
staring at the ceiling.
There was a tiny spot of blood on one hand.