with the background on which he lay. He took care to keep his arms in,
to sink his head well into his rounded shoulders, to curl his feet and
legs up under the skirt of his mackintosh, knowing well from his own
experience that where the outline of a body is vague and easily escapes
notice, a head or an arm, or especially and particularly a booted foot
and leg, will stand out glaringly distinct. As he lay, he placed his
ear to the muddy ground, but could hear no sound of mining operations
beneath him. Foot by foot he hitched himself upward to the rim of the
crater's edge, and again lay and listened for thrilling long-drawn
minute after minute.

Suddenly his heart jumped and his flesh went cold. Unmistakingly he
heard the scuffle and swish of footsteps on the wet ground, the murmur
of voices apparently within a yard or two of his head. There were men
in the mine-crater, and, from the sound of their movements, they were
creeping out on a patrol similar to his own, perhaps, and, as near as
he could judge, on a line that would bring them directly on top of him.
The scuffing passed slowly in front of him and for a few yards along
the inside of the crater. The sound of the murmuring voices passed
suddenly from confused dullness to a sharp clearer-edged speech,
telling Ainsley, as plainly as if he could see, that the speaker had
risen from behind the sound-deadening ridge of earth and was looking
clear over its top, Ainsley lay as still as one of the clods of earth
about him, lay scarcely daring to breathe, and with his skin pringling.
There was a pause that may have been seconds, but that felt like hours.
He did not dare move his head to look; he could only wait in an agony
of apprehension with his flesh shrinking from the blow of a bullet that
he knew would be the first announcement of his discovery. But the
stillness was unbroken, and presently, to his infinite relief, he heard
again the guttural voices and the sliding footsteps pass back across