"Then suddenly the evening hate started--artillery from all over the place--and with it the Belgian labourers ceased from plucking sticks. Running down a little path, so close to me that I could almost touch him, came one of them. He stopped about ten yards away where the dense undergrowth finished, and, after looking cautiously round, waved his hand. The other one nipped behind a tree and called out something in a guttural tone of voice. And then, I give you my word, out of the bowels of the earth there popped up a little gun not twenty yards from where I'd been lying the whole day. By this time, of course, I was in the same sort of condition as a terrier is when he's seen the cat he has set his heart on shin up a tree, having missed her tail by half an inch. "They clapped her on a little mounting quick as light, laid her, loaded, and, by the holy saints! under my very nose, loosed off a present for Poperinghe. The man on guard waved his hand again, and bedad! away went another. The next instant he was back, again an exclamation in German, and in about two shakes the whole thing had disappeared, and there were the two labourers picking sticks. I give you my word it was like a clown popping up in a pantomime through a trap-door; I had to pinch myself to make certain I was awake. "The next instant into the clearing came two English soldiers, the reason evidently of the sudden dismantling. Had they been armed we'd have had at them then and there; but, of course, so far behind the trenches, they had no rifles. They just peered round, saw the Belgians, and went off again. I heard their steps dying away in the distance, and decided to wait a bit longer. The two men seemed to be discussing what to do, and ultimately moved behind the tree again, where I could hear them talking. At last they came to a decision, and picking up their bundles of sticks came slowly down the path past me. They were not going to fire again that evening." Dick smiled reminiscently. "Bill, pass the rum. I'm thirsty." "What did you do, Dick?" I asked, eagerly. "What d'you think? I was out like a knife and let drive with my hand-gun. I killed the first one as dead as mutton, and missed the second, who shot like a stag into the undergrowth. Gad! It was great. I put two more where I thought he was, but as I still heard him crashing on I must have missed him. Then I nipped round the tree to find the gun. The only thing there was a great hole full of leaves. I ploughed across it, thinking it must be the other side, when, without a word of warning, I fell through the top--bang through the top, my boy, of the neatest hiding-place you've ever thought of. The whole of the centre of those leaves was a fake. There were about two inches of them supported on light hurdle-work. I was in the robber's cave with a vengeance." "Was the gun there?" I cried, excitedly.