Danger there was, no doubt, danger to life, but it never so much as thrust its head out of that portentous hillside.

They stuffed in the sulphur and nitre, they bunged the holes soundly, and fired their trains.

Then with a common impulse all the party but Cossar turned and ran athwart the long shadows of the pines, and, finding Cossar had stayed behind, came to a halt together in a knot, a hundred yards away, convenient to a ditch that offered cover.

Just for a minute or two the moonlit night, all black and white, was heavy with a suffocated buzz, that rose and mingled to a roar, a deep abundant note, and culminated and died, and then almost incredibly the night was still.
"By Jove!" said Bensington, almost in a whisper, "_it's done!_" All stood intent.

The hillside above the black point-lace of the pine shadows seemed as bright as day and as colourless as snow.