"Who are you?" Anthony Trent cried not yet able to comprehend this lifting of what he felt was a sentence imposed. "Where am I?"
The man who answered spoke with one of those cultivated English voices which Trent had once believed to be the mark of decadence or effeminacy, a belief the bloody fields of France had swept from him.
"Well," said the man slowly, "I really don't see that it matters much now to anyone what my name may be."
"The only thing that matters to me," Trent cried with almost hysterical fervor, "is that I'm not blind as I thought I was."
The answer of the unknown man was singular; but Trent, who was not far from hysteria on account of bodily pain and the mental anguish through which he had been, did not take note of it.
"I don't think that matters much either," the voice of the man in the dark commented.
"Then where are we?" Trent demanded.
"There again I can't help you much," the unknown answered. "This was a common or garden dug-out."
"Was," Trent repeated, "What is it now?"
"A tomb," the stranger told him puffing at his cigarette. "I found you bleeding to death and I bandaged your arm. I was knocked out myself and your men and mine had gone on and there was never a Red Cross man or anyone else in sight so I carried you into this dug-out. All of a sudden some damned H. E. blocked up the opening. When the dust settled I explored with my few matches. Our tomb is sealed up—absolutely. I've often heard of it happening before. It looks as if a house had been lifted up and planted right on this dug-out."