"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.