"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.