The evening muster was now due, and if this also went off all right a small red lamp was to be shown in the lop middle window of the castle. It was now slowly becoming twilight; but the minutes still seemed hours, and it was a long way from being dark enough to leave the trench. We wondered if the sentry had gone to sleep. The sound of his footsteps had long ceased, but other noises now began. Cattle grazing in the surrounding meadows, and numerous deer which came to the neighbouring drinking place, would rub themselves on the posts which carried the wire entanglement. In doing so they often entangled their horns in the barbed wire, causing it to rattle and shake throughout its length. The sentries had long got accustomed, to these noises (for they occurred every night), a fact which was extremely favourable to our design. I reckoned heavily on the negligence of the sentries, for during my numerous nocturnal excursions I had observed that when it was near midnight and the orderly officer had visited his sentries, the latter usually put down their rifles in a corner and either leant against a post and slept or walked over to the next sentry, fifty yards away. Then they usually put on a pipe and chatted till the relief came. The tower-clock struck eleven; so we had already been three hours in this damnable hole. Another half-hour and we might perhaps risk it. We carefully raised our heads from time to time above the edge of the ditch in order to have a peep round. It was now getting dark rapidly. The neighbouring trees could be seen only very indistinctly. We made careful 'soundings.' All was quiet. In the top story of the main building a tiny red lamp burned. We gave each other a nudge of intelligence. The sentry who ought to have been keeping watch just above our hiding-place had either disappeared or gone fast asleep. At least we could see no trace of him. No need for reflection now. Carefully we rose and crawled over the edge till we lay full length on the grass, keeping as low as we possibly could. The numerous electric lights which surrounded the camp threw their glare far beyond us. At first we lay like logs and listened. We were not sorry to have a good stretch, for our limbs were almost paralysed from lying so long on the cold, wet earth, and it was a long time before the blood began to circulate. Like Red Indians on the trail we crept forward inch by inch, pausing every now and then in order to look round and regain our breath; for with our two suits of clothes, and the thick leather waistcoats which we wore under our tunics, this creeping was very heavy work. It was therefore a good half-hour before we reached the wicker chairs and could unfasten our kits. And this, too, had to be done slowly and carefully, for the canes of the chairs creaked at every touch.