His risk to-night was an equal one but the exhilaration seemed lacking.

This work in a country apparently at peace seemed somehow on a different level.

If it were less dangerous, it was also less stimulating.

In those few moments the soldier blood in him called for the turmoil of war, the panorama of life and death, the fierce, hot excitement of juggling with fate while the heavens themselves seemed raining death on every side.

Here there was nothing but silence, the soft splash of the distant sea, the barking of a distant dog.