"I
never thought of that." By his tone, he was proud of the amendment.
"Come on, by all means. I say, I didn't really--I didn't _want_ poor old
Gilly down here, you know."
They crawled on, with more speed but no less caution, up the strait
little gallery, which now rose between smooth, soft walls of clay.
Suddenly, as the incline once more became a level, they saw a glimmering
square of dusky red, like the fluttering of a weak flame through scarlet
cloth. This, while they shuffled toward it, grew higher and broader,
until they lay prone in the very door of the hill,--a large, square-cut
portal, deeply overhung by the edge of the clay-pit, and flanked with
what seemed a bulkhead of sand-bags piled in orderly tiers. Between
shadowy mounds of loose earth flickered the light of a fire, small and
distant, round which wavered the inky silhouettes of men, and beyond
which dimly shone a yellow face or two, a yellow fist clutched full of
boiled rice like a snowball. Beyond these, in turn, gleamed other little
fires, where other coolies were squatting at their supper.
"Rudie, look!" Heywood's voice trembled with joyful excitement.
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