rrying out his duties.

"But what's this?" Henri and Stuart and Jules heard him say, a second
later, as his other hand came into view, groping along the floor of the
tunnel and plunging deep into the loose soil so recently pulled from
the roof above. "The tunnel ends abruptly, and above--what's
this?--above, the ruffians were making a hole. But this is strange,
for when I entered before there was no sign of such a thing. The
tunnel ended just here, as it does now, and the earth at its foot was
hard and beaten, while above it was hard as well, but shook and gave
out a hollow sound. What's this? Ah! A hole."

It was with amazement that his eyes fell upon the ragged edge of the
opening above, as the beams from his electric torch fell upon it. He
stumbled and struggled forward, and, rising to his feet, shot his hands
upward to grip the edge above him. He would, perhaps, have given vent
to a shout had not Stuart, lying immediately over the tunnel, in fact
right above the figure of the German, leaned down, and, stretching his
hands below him, gripped the German by the nape of the neck with one
hand, and the electric torch with the other, jerking the latter back
into the tunnel, where it lay with its beams flashing in the opposite
direction. He then proceeded to draw the German up towards him as one
draws the cork out of the neck of a bottle, to extricate him in spite
of his kicks and struggles; while that other hand, set free from the
torch, was clapped over his mouth, smothering any sounds of which the
under-officer was capable. Not that it was an easy matter to give vent
to a shout of alarm in such a position, for Stuart's huge fingers and
thumb gripped the German so fiercely and firmly about the neck, just
below his jaws, that movement of the latter was impossible, and the
very attempt to make a sound was excessively painful. Up then he came
slowly, struggling, his hands beating the earth and reaching up in the
endeavour to grip his assailant, his heavily shod feet lashing to and
fro and kicking clods of earth from the sides of the tunnel; up till
his head was clear of the opening, till almost half his body had been
extricated; and then, when Stuart, now on his feet and half upright,
had placed himself in a favourable position, suddenly the German was
shot back into the place from which he had just been dragged, shot back
with unexpectedness and violence, till he came with a crash against the
bottom of the tunn