midday
His fire was burning satisfactorily about fifty feet off , and he folded his arms on the ground and rested his forehead on them , and watched lazily the little black ants that ran about in the red sand , just under his nose . A great stillness settled down on the camp . Now and again a stick cracked in the fires , and the cicadas cried aloud in the tree stems ; but except where the solitary paced up and down before the little flat-topped tree in front of the captain 's tent , not a creature stirred in the whole camp ; and the snores of the trooper under the bushes might be heard half across the camp . The intense midday heat had settled down . At last there was the sound of someone breaking through the long grass and bushes which had only been removed for a few feet round the camp , and the figure of a man emerged bearing in one hand a gun , and in the other a bird which he had shot . He was evidently an Englishman , and not long from Europe , by the bloom of the skin , which was perceptible in spite of the superficial tan . His face was at the moment flushed with heat ; but the clear blue eyes and delicate features lost none of their sensitive refinement .