. Their
blackened faces were set and grim. And whether they spoke, or moved,
or merely sat still, they were listening--listening.

All four were British officers. Marsh and Fullerton were subalterns
belonging to a cavalry regiment. Desmond was a captain--a Dublin
Fusilier; and Jim Linton completed the quartette; and they sat in a
hole in the ground under the floor of an officers' barrack in a
Westphalian prison-camp. The yawning opening in front of them
represented five months' ceaseless work, night after night. It was
the mouth of a tunnel.

"I dreamed to-day that we crawled in," Marsh said, in a whisper--they
had all learned to hear the faintest murmur of speech. "And we
crawled, and crawled, and crawled: for years, it seemed. And then we
saw daylight ahead, and we crawled out--in Piccadilly Circus!"

"That was 'some' tunnel, even in a dream," Desmond said.

"I feel as if it were 'some' tunnel now," remarked Jim--still
breathing heavily.

"Yes--you've had a long spell, Linton. We were just beginning to
think something was wrong."

"I thought I might as well finish--and then another bit of roof fell
in, and I had to fix it," Jim answered. "Well, it won't be gardening
that I'll go in for when I get back to Australia; I've dug enough here
to last me my life!"

"Hear, hear!" said some one. "And what now?"

"Bed, I think," Desmond said. "And to-morrow night--the last crawl
down that beastly rabbit-run, if we've luck. Only this time we won't
crawl back."

He felt within a little hollow in the earth wall, and brought out some
empty tins and some bottles of water; and slowly, painstakingly, they
washed off the dirt that encrusted them. It was a long business, and
at the end of it Desmond inspected them all, and was himself
inspected, to make sure that no tell-tale streaks remained. Finally
he nodded, satisfied, and then, with infinite caution, he slid back a
panel and peered out into blackness--having first extinguished their
little light. There was no sound. He slipped out of the door, and
returned after a few moments.

"All clear," he whispered, and vanished.

One by one they followed him, each man gliding noiselessly away. They
had donned uniform coats and trousers before leaving, and closed the
entrance to the tunnel with a round screen of rough, interlaced twigs
which they plastered with earth. The tins were buried again, with
the bottles. Ordinarily each man carried away an empty bottl