“Much cleverer,” the boy said, “but we've been great chums all our life. She's the cleverest woman ever knew, earns lots of money writing for newspapers.
“Here, you've dropped your cigar, Trent.”
Trent groped for it on the ground with shaking fingers.
“Writes for newspapers?” he repeated slowly. “I wonder—her name isn't Davenant, is it?”
The boy shook his head.
“No, she's my mother's cousin really—only I call her Aunty, we always got on so. She isn't really much older than me, her name is Wendermott—Ernestine Wendermott. Ernestine's a pretty name, don't you think?”
Trent rose to his feet, muttering something about a sound in the forest. He stood with his back to the boy looking steadily at the dark line of outlying scrub, seeing in reality nothing, yet keenly anxious that the red light of the dancing flames should not fall upon his face. The boy leaned on his elbow and looked in the same direction. He was puzzled by a fugitive something which he had seen in Trent's face.
Afterwards Trent liked sometimes to think that it was the sound of her name which had saved them all. For, whereas his gaze had been idle at first, it became suddenly fixed and keen. He stooped down and whispered something to the boy. The word was passed along the line of sleeping men and one by one they dropped back into the deep-cut trench. The red fire danced and crackled—only a few yards outside the flame-lit space came the dark forms of men creeping through the rough grass like snakes.