with his head over the edge of the sap, the ring of the Prussian's revolver as it moved up towards his face.
What happened, happened quickly: most of these things are touch and go. The bullet whizzed past his face into the night—his left hand hit the revolver just in time; and even as the bullet went wide his right hand struck sideways with the knife. It sank into the Prussian's neck; he felt a rush of something warm and sticky, and then he was grabbed from behind.
"Quick," muttered Shorty in his ear, "hop it; hop it like hell. I'll guide you."
Blinded and dazed by the blast of the revolver, he stumbled mechanically after his leader. "Into this shell hole for a moment," whispered Bill imperatively, as a machine gun let drive with a few rounds which passed over them like a flight of cockchafers. "Now come on. Home this trip, my boy—I didn't know that swab was there. …"
"I killed him, Bill," said Reginald, half an hour later, as he sat rubbing his eyes on the fire step of their own trenches to get the stinging of the cordite out.
"You done well, son," said Bill; "an' if any one doubts it—show 'em your hand."
By the light of a match Reggie looked at it, and he shuddered. It bore, as Bill implied, the proof of death.
He was silent too awhile; the first hot-blooded one is more rattling to the nerves than a stranger three
