A few feet to the right there lay an isolated rock much lower than the one whose shelter he had gained. Throwing himself flat on the ground, he crawled slowly forward, and noticed when he came to the smaller boulder that, still farther to the right, and a little in advance, there was a yet smaller rock, the lateral interval between the two being so narrow that he thought it unlikely he could be seen by the Russians if he used it as a peep-hole. It turned out as he surmised. He found that, while himself invisible, he commanded a view of about one-sixth of the space occupied by the Russians. As he looked, he saw that the Manchu who had been so troublesome had disappeared; the line of the hill-crest was unbroken. Bob feared that the man had escaped him, but in a moment he caught sight of his head and shoulders again, at a point somewhat to the left of his former position. He lowered himself as before, and bent forward on his elbow, waiting a favourable opportunity to test his marksmanship. The moment came; some incautious Chunchuse had no doubt exposed himself, for Bob saw the Manchu lift his rifle in the attitude of taking aim. He was destined never to pull the trigger. From his first movement Bob had covered him; while he was still aiming, the crack of a rifle was heard in the gully, and the Manchu’s head fell forward, his rifle forming a dark streak on the snow. So instantaneous had been the effect of his shot that Bob was for the moment doubtful; but it was impossible to mistake the attitude of the inert form on the hillside. The man was dead. The fact came home to Bob with a sort of shock. A soldier in the heat of battle has no time to reflect; his duty is to shoot straight and keep his nerve. But this single shot had not been fired in the rush of fight; it had scarcely caused his nerves to tingle more than in a keenly-contested musketry competition at home. For the moment he felt guilty as though he had committed a crime, and, rifle in hand, stared spell-bound at the prostrate figure. Then he was startled from his reverie by the sound of a hail of bullets whistling through the air and pattering on the rocks, and around him the discharge of a dozen antiquated pieces within the space of a few yards filled the air with the pungent smell of war.