However when I arrived at the place where the man usually stood, no one challenged me.

I thought that perhaps on account of the night being rainy and uncomfortable he had retired to the guard room, and I walked along with a free mind.

I was just near the large gateway, however, when a most stentorian voice shouted out, "Halt, who goes there ?" and at the same instant in the darkness I saw the sudden flash of a bayonet flourished in my direction.

Not expecting such an event, I could not for the moment think of what I ought to say, but I called out in equally stentorian tones, "For heaven's sake, my boy, don't make such a row; its only Canon Scott and I have lost my (p.

108) horse." A burst of laughter greeted my announcement, and the man told me that, seeing somebody with a flashlight at that time of the night wandering through the fields, and searching for something, he had become convinced that a German spy was at work cutting the telephone wires that led back to the guns, so he had got near the guard room where he could obtain assistance, and awaited my approach in the darkness.