him by
approaching the solitary scene of his operations; and of the two
sentinels who were placed near the part of the wall which was the
centre of all his exertions, one remained motionless at the most
distant extremity of his post, and the other paced restlessly backwards
and forwards on the rampart, singing a wild, rambling song about war,
and women, and wine, which, whatever liberty it might allow to his
organs of perception, effectually hindered the vigilant exercise of his
faculties of hearing.

Brick after brick yielded to the vigorous and well-timed efforts of
Ulpius. He had already made a cavity, in an oblique direction, large
enough to creep through, and was preparing to penetrate still further,
when a portion of the rotten material of the interior of the wall
suddenly yielded in a mass to a chance pressure of his iron bar, and
slowly sunk down inwards into a bed which, judging by such faint sounds
as were audible at the moment, must have been partly water, and partly
marshy earth and rotten brick-work. After having first listened, to be
sure that the slight noise caused by this event had not reached the
ears or excited the suspicions of the careless sentinels, Ulpius crept
into the cavity he had made, groping his way with his bar, until he
reached the brink of a chasm, the depth of which he could not probe,
and the breadth of which he could not ascertain.

He lingered irresolute; the darkness around him was impenetrable; he
could feel toads and noisome animals crawling over his limbs. The damp
atmosphere of the place began to thrill through him to his very bones;
his whole frame trembled under the excess of his past exertions.
Without light, he could neither attempt to proceed, nor hope to
discover the size and extent of the chasm which he had partially laid
open. The mist was fast vanishing as the night advanced: it was
necessary to arrive at a resolution ere it would be too late.

He crept out of the cavity. Just as he had gained the open air, the
sentinel halted over the very spot where the Pagan stood, and paused
suddenly in his song. There was an instant's interval of silence,
during which the inmost soul of Ulpius quailed beneath an apprehension
as vivid, as that which had throbbed in the heart of the despised
lizard, whose flight had guided him to his discovery at the wall.
Soon, however, he heard the voice of the soldier calling cheerfully to
his fellow sentinel, 'Comrade, do you see the mo