Riley abruptly turned to their own periscope and apparently resumed the conversation.

“I’m almost sure that’s him with the white head,” said Riley.  “Out there, about forty or fifty yards from the German parapet, and about a hundred yards ten o’clock from our listening-post.  Have a look.”

He handed the periscope over to Brock, and at the same time noticed how eagerly the sentry was also having a look into his own periscope.

“I’ve got him,” said Brock.  “Yes, I believe that’s the man.”

“What makes it more certain,” said Riley, “is that hen’s scratch of a trench the other battalion started to dig out to the listening-post.  They couldn’t crawl out in the open to get to the General, and it’s my belief they meant to drive a sap out to the listening-post, and then out to the General, and yank him in, so they could go through his pockets.”

“It’s a good bit of work to get at a dead man,” said Brock reflectively.

“It is,” said Riley, “but it isn’t often you can drive a sap with five thousand francs at the end of it.”

“To say nothing of a diamond-studded gold watch,” said Brock.

“Well, well,” said Riley, “I suppose the Germans won’t be leaving him lying out there much longer.  I hear the last battalion bagged quite a bunch that tried to creep out at night to get him in; but I suppose our fellows, not knowing about it, won’t watch him so carefully.”

They turned the conversation to other and more casual things, and shortly afterwards moved off.

The first-fruits of their sowing showed within the hour, when some of the officers were having tea together in a corner of a ruined cottage, which had been converted into a keep.

The servant who was preparing tea had placed a battered pot on the half of a broken door, which served for a mess table; had laid out a loaf of bread, tin pots of jam, a cake, and a flattened box of flattened chocolates, and these offices having been fully performed he should have retired.  Instead, however, he fidgeted to and fro, offered to pour the tea from the dented coffee-pot, asked if anything more was wanted, pushed the loaf over to the Captain, apologizing at length for the impossibility of getting a scrape of butter these days; hovered round the table, and generally made it plain that he had something he wished to say, or that he supposed they had something to say he wished to hear.

“What are you dodging about there for, man?” the Captain asked irritably at last.  “Is it anything you want?”

“Nothing, sorr,” said the man, “only I was just wondering if you had heard annything of a Gineral with fifty thousand francs in his pocket, lying out there beyond the trench.”

“Five thousand francs,” corrected Riley gently.

“’Twas fifty thousand I heard, sorr,” said the man eagerly; “but ye have heard, then, sorr?”

“What’s this about a General?” demanded the Captain.