“Phe-ew!” whistled Dickenson. “Oh, surely not!”
“I feel sure that they are.”
“Well, let’s send word on to the old man. Send one of the sergeants.”
“And by the time he got there with his news, and reinforcements could be sent, the enemy would have the gun here.”
“Let’s tell Roby, then.”
“Yes; come on.”
In another minute they had told their officer their suspicions, and he hummed and ha’d a little after listening.
“It hardly seems likely,” he said, “and I don’t want to raise a false alarm. Besides, the outposts have given no notice; and hark! I can hear nothing.”
“Now?”
They listened in the darkness, and it was as their captain suggested: all perfectly still.