If one should lose oneself therein, one might wander for days, as one did in catacombs.... Having no tallow candle, but only an electric torch, one might eat one's boots ... the very rats....
Not repressing a shudder, Henry stood hesitating at the cross-roads, looking this way and that, his ears strained to listen for sounds.
And presently, turning a corner, he perceived that there were sounds—footsteps and low voices, advancing down the left-hand passage towards him. Quickly shutting his light, he stepped back till he came to the right-hand turning, and went a little way up it, to where it sharply bent. Just round the corner he stopped, and stood hidden. He was gambling on the chance that whoever was coming would advance, back or forward, along the main tunnel when they struck into it. If, on the other hand, they crossed this and turned up his passage, he could hastily recede before them until perhaps another turning came, or possibly some exit, or until they turned on him that horrid moon of light and caught him....
Well, life is a gamble at all times, and more particularly to those who play the spy.
Henry listened. The steps came nearer. They had a queer, hollow sound on the earthy floor. Low voices murmured.
It came to Henry suddenly that these were not the voices of Charles Wilbraham, of Sir John Levis, of M. Kratzky, or, presumably then, of the little pastor. These were voices more human, less deadly.
The footsteps reached the main passage, and then halted.
“Here's a puzzle,” said a voice. “Which way, then? Will we divide, or take the one road?”
And then Henry, though he loved not Ulster, thanked God and came forward.
At the sound of his advance a flashlight was swung upon him, and the Ulster voice said, “Put them up!”