"In that case it would be diamond cut diamond, Keane, eh?" The other shrugged his shoulder at the very thought, and prayed that such a contingency might not happen, at any rate until something tangible had first been discovered. "In three hours it will be midnight," he said. "If no one passes this way by then, I think we must carry out our search in the dark. Time is pressing; we must find something within another forty-eight hours, or poor old Tempest will be at his wit’s end, and calling us home again. He cannot leave us long on this trail." "The greater the pity. A fortnight is not too long to follow a trail like this," said Sharpe. "Yet you had to do things pretty smartly in those dark days of 1917 and 1918, Sharpe." "Yes, and there was some danger and excitement attached to it, which sharpened one’s wits." "Never fear! There’ll be both before we have finished this trek," returned Keane. "Hist! What was that?" said Sharpe in an undertone, as he caught the sound of broken twigs. "Someone approaching," whispered his companion. They listened acutely now, with every sense keenly alert. Again they heard the sound, and it seemed to come from the western side of the open glade, where the last dull glow of the sunset still revealed the edge of the forest. The camp fire had died down to a smoulder, but Keane instinctively held his ground sheet before the dying embers, lest their presence should be betrayed. He was anxious to learn something of the nature of this visitor before he revealed himself. "Bah! It is some creature of the forest," observed Sharpe, after a moment’s hesitation. "A wild boar or a red-spotted deer, most likely." He was right, for the next moment a series of grunts proceeded from the spot whence came the sounds, and, as though suddenly startled by the consciousness of some human presence, the beast, a fine specimen of the _Sus Scrofa_, with fierce protruding tusks and long stiff bristles, broke cover, trotted swiftly across the glade, within thirty yards of the two watchers, and entered the forest on the other side. "So much for that little incident," muttered Sharpe, as he released his grip of the Webley pistol, which his right hand had instinctively grasped, when the dark shadow broke from the margin of the trees. Keane shook his head as though he disagreed with his companion, and remarked in a low voice, "The creature was evidently startled or it would not have fled like that. Its scent is very keen, and as the wind is blowing from the west, it suspected danger from that quarter." *CHAPTER XVI* *THE GHOSTLY VISITANT* A few moments later the two men were startled by the sound of a human voice, trolling out the words of some German folk-song, and approaching from the same quarter towards the clearing.