halted presently within sight of the wasp-holes.

The sun was setting now, and the wasps were coming home for good; their
wings in the golden light made twirling haloes about them. The three men
peered out from under the trees--they did not care to go right to the
edge of the wood--and watched these tremendous insects drop and crawl
for a little and enter and disappear. "They will be still in a couple of
hours from now," said Redwood.... "This is like being a boy again."

"We can't miss those holes," said Bensington, "even if the night is
dark. By-the-bye--about the light--"

"Full moon," said the electrician. "I looked it up."

They went back and consulted with Cossar.

He said that "obviously" they must get the sulphur, nitre, and plaster
of Paris through the wood before twilight, and for that they broke bulk
and carried the sacks. After the necessary shouting of the preliminary
directions, never a word was spoken, and as the buzzing of the wasps'
nest died away there was scarcely a sound in the world but the noise of
footsteps, the heavy breathing of burthened men, and the thud of the
sacks. They all took turns at that labour except Mr. Bensington, who was
manifestly unfit. He took post in the Skinners' bedroom with a rifle, to
watch the carcase of the dead rat, and of the others, they took turns to
rest from sack-carrying and to keep watch two at a time upon the
rat-holes behind the nettle grove. The pollen sacs of the nettles were
ripe, and every now and then the vigil would be enlivened by the
dehiscence of these, the bursting of the sacs sounding exactly like the
crack of a pistol, and the pollen grains as big as buckshot pattered all