“Certainly, sir,” Horridge replied, rising. Sir Henry held out his hand. He looked with something like wonder at the nerve-shattered man who had risen to his feet with a certain air of briskness. “Horridge,” he said, “I wish I had your pluck.” “I don't know any one in the service from whom you need borrow any, sir,” was the quiet reply. CHAPTER XIX Lessingham sat upon a fallen tree on Dutchman's Common near the scene of his romantic descent, and looked rather ruefully over the moorland, seawards. Above him, the sky was covered with little masses of quickly scudding clouds. A fugitive and watery sunshine shone feebly upon a wind-tossed sea and a rain-sodden landscape. He found a certain grim satisfaction in comparing the disorderliness of the day with the tumult in his own life. He felt that he had embarked upon an enterprise greater than his capacity, for which he was in many ways entirely unsuitable. And behind him was the scourge of the telegram which he had received a few hours ago, a telegram harmless enough to all appearance, but which, decoded, was like a scourge to his back. Your work is unsatisfactory and your slackness deserves reprobation. Great events wait upon you. The object of your search is necessary for our imminent operations. The sound of a horse's hoofs disturbed him. Captain Griffiths, on a great bay mare, glanced curiously at the lonely figure by the roadside, and then pulled up. “Back again, Mr. Lessingham?” he remarked. “As you see.” The Commandant fidgeted with his horse for a moment. Then he approached a little nearer to Lessingham's side. “You are a good walker, I perceive, Mr. Lessingham,” he remarked. “When the fancy takes me,” was the equable reply. “Have you come out to see our new guns?” “I had no idea,” Lessingham answered indifferently, “that you had any.” Griffiths smiled. “We have a small battery of anti-aircraft guns, newly arrived from the south of England,” he said. “The secret of their coming and their locality has kept the neighbourhood in a state of ferment for the last week.” Lessingham remained profoundly uninterested. “They most of them spotted the guns,” his companion continued, “but not many of them have found the searchlights yet.” “It seems a little late in the year,” Lessingham observed, “to be making preparations against Zeppelins.” “Well, they cross here pretty often, you know,” Griffiths reminded him. “It's only a matter of a few weeks ago that one almost came to grief on this common. We picked up their observation car not fifty yards from where you are sitting.” “I remember hearing about it,” Lessingham acknowledged. “By-the-by,” the Commandant continued, smoothing his horse's neck, “didn't you arrive that evening or the evening after?” “I believe I did.” “Liverpool Street or King's Cross? The King's Cross train was very nearly held up.”