cover as quickly
as might be behind a sandhill, where I sat down and waited for a
considerable time to allow the excitement to cool down.

Presently, who should I see creeping round the corner of a
neighbouring sandhill but my friend the "dodger"! It was too late to
avoid him, and the moment he saw me he appeared to wish to go away
rather than to arrest me. We then recognised that we were mutually
afraid of each other, and therefore came together with a certain
amount of diffidence on both sides.

However, we got into conversation, in French, and I very soon found
that, although representatives of different nationalities, we were
both at the same game of making a plan of the fort. We therefore
joined forces, and behind a sandhill we compared notes as to what
information we had already gained, and then devised a little plan by
which to complete the whole scheme.

My friend took his place in a prominent position with his back to the
fort and commenced to smoke, with every appearance of indifference to
the defence work behind him. This was meant to catch the sentry's eye
and attract his attention while I did some creeping and crawling and
got round the other side of the work, where I was able to complete our
survey in all its details.

[Illustration: _A sketch showing how I and another spy managed to
obtain drawings of a fort absolutely under the eyes of a sentry. The
spy on the right of the picture is doing nothing more than attracting
the attention of the sentry while on the left of the picture I am
making the necessary drawings._]

It was late that night when we met in the "dodger's" bedroom, and we
made complete tracings and finished drawings, each of us taking his
own copy for his own headquarters. A day or two later we took steamer
together for Malta, where we were to part on our respective homeward
journeys--he on his way back to Italy.

As we both had a day or two to wait at Malta, I acted as host to him
during his stay. As we entered the harbour I pointed out to him the
big 110-ton guns which at that time protected the entrance, and were
visible to anybody with two eyes in his head. I pointed out various
other interesting batteries to him which were equally obvious, but
I omitted to mention other parts which would have been of greater
interest to him.

He came away from Malta, however, with the idea that, on the whole, he
had done a good stroke of business for his Government by going there,
and convince