"
"But haven't you any plans?" asked Mrs. Vansittart, in despair. "What
are you going to do? You are not going to let these brutes kill Tony
Cornish? Surely you, as a soldier, must know how to meet this crisis."
"Oh yes. Not much of a soldier, you know," answered White, soothingly,
as he moved away towards Uncle Ben. "But I think I know how this
business ought to be managed. Come along--hide ourselves."
He led the way across the dunes, dragging Uncle Ben by one arm, and
keeping in the hollows. The two women followed in silence on the silent
sand.
Once Major White paused and looked back. "Don't talk," he said, holding
up a large fat hand in a ridiculous gesture of warning, which he must
have learnt in the nursery. He looked like a large baby listening for a
bogey in the chimney.
Once or twice he consulted Uncle Ben, and as often glanced at his
compass. There was a certain skill in his attitude and demeanour, as if
he knew exactly what he was about. Mrs. Vansittart had a hundred
questions to ask him, but they died on her lips. The moon rose suddenly
over the distant trees and flooded all the sand-hills with light. Major
White halted his little party in a deep hollow, and consulted Uncle Ben
in whispers. Then bidding him sit down, he left the three alone in
their hiding-place, and went away by himself. He climbed almost to the
summit of a neighbouring mound, and stopped suddenly, with his face
uplifted, as if smelling something.
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