'Lizzie?' muttered Ken, still half dazed with the prodigious explosion.

Again came an enormous roar, followed by a sound like a train rushing through the sky. Then from a hill to the left and a mile or so inland a geyser of rocks and soil spouted, and was followed by the same earth-shaking crash which had wakened him.

Ken looked out to sea. Some three miles off shore lay the biggest battleship he had ever set eyes on. Even at that distance her immense turrets, with their grinning gun muzzles, were clearly visible.

'The "Queen Elizabeth!"' he gasped.

'That's what,' said Roy Horan, who had got up and joined Ken. 'They've sent her along to lend us a hand. Oh, I tell you, she's no slouch. Watch her now! Gee, but she's giving Young Turkey something to chew on.'

'Why, there's a regular fleet!' exclaimed Ken, rubbing the last of the sleep from his eyes. 'This is something like. Some of those sniping gentlemen are going to be sorry for themselves.'

No fewer than seven warships were lying off the coast, every one of them smashing their broadsides into the Turkish positions. The noise was incredible, but every sound was dwarfed when the great super-Dreadnought fired her 15-inch guns. The shells, the length of a tall man and weighing very nearly a ton, were charged with shrapnel, carrying no fewer than twenty thousand bullets apiece. Exploding over the enemy's position, each deluged a couple of acres of ground with a torrent of lead.



It was a most amazing sight. The whole sky was full of the smoke of bursting shells—smoke so heavy that the light breeze could not break it, as it swam in masses that seemed quite solid until they struck against the higher ground far inland.

Hour after hour the tremendous bombardment continued. At first the Turkish field pieces endeavoured to reply, but one by one they were silenced, and when at last, late in the afternoon, the thunder of the guns ceased, the silence was only broken by a faint crackle of musketry.

'Now's our chance!' exclaimed O'Brien, who seemed to have an uncanny faculty for understanding beforehand exactly what was in the colonel's mind.

'A charge, you mean?' said Ken eagerly.

'That's it, sonny. Before they've got over the effects of that swate little pasting.'

Sure enough, a minute later came the order for advance, and, refreshed by their long rest, the Australians and New Zealanders came pouring over their parapet, and with bayonets flashing in the evening sun, rushed forward through the scrub.

For the first two hundred yards there was hardly a check, then all of a sudden the scattered fire thickened.

'They're in the ravine, bhoys,' shouted O'Brien. 'Don't be waiting to shoot. Give thim the steel.'

The firing grew heavier. Many of the gallant Colonials dropped, but the only effect upon the rest was to make them race forward at greater speed.

Ken saw before him a dark line seamed with spits and flashes of flame. A bullet clipped past his ear so close that he felt the wind of it. He never paused. Next moment he was over the lip of the shallow ravine in which the Turks had entrenched themselves.

On the two previous occasions when he and his comrades had attacked Turkish trenches, the enemy had defended themselves bravely. Now they seemed no longer to have any stomach for the fight. As the Colonials poured like an avalanche into the ravine the Turks turned, and scrambling wildly up the far side, bolted for their lives.

But the Colonials, with the bitter memory in their minds of all they had suffered during the previous night and day, were not minded to let them escape so easily. With loud shouts they gave chase. The Turks, good marchers but poor runners, stood no earthly chance in this terrible race, and by scores and hundreds were bayoneted or seized and dragged back as prisoners.

Filled with mad excitement, Ken raced onwards in the forefront of the line. His bayonet was dripping, a red mist clouded his eyes, for the moment he was fighting mad.

He stumbled over a log and nearly fell. He realised that he was in a small wood of low-growing trees with wide spreading branches. To his right he heard shouts and shrieks and the sound of shots, but for the moment there was not another soul in sight.

His throat was like a lime kiln. He stopped a moment to take a swallow of water from his felt-covered flask, then went forward again.

He came to an open space, and as he reached its edge saw four men with a quick-firer hurrying frantically across the open to the trees on the far side.

Three were Turks, but the fourth wore the gray-green of a German officer. The latter was short and—for a German—slight. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar.

At that moment he turned and glanced round, and Ken saw his face. He could hardly believe his eyes. The man was Kemp, ex-steward of the 'Cardigan Castle.' There could be no doubt about it. That sallow complexion, the low forehead, and the thick black eyebrows which met above his nose were quite unmistakable.

Without an instant's hesitation Ken flung up his rifle and fired straight at the man. But blown with long running, his hand shook. At any rate, he missed, and next instant the German, the Turks, and their gun vanished into the trees opposite.

Footsteps came crashing through the dead leaves and dry sticks behind Ken.

'We've got 'em on toast, Carrington,' came the deep voice of Roy Horan. The big fellow was splashed with blood and dripping with perspiration, but in his eyes was a gleam which told of his delight at the result of the charge.

Ken gave a gasp of joy.

'The very man, Horan! Kemp and three Turkish gunners have just gone into the trees opposite. They've got a quick-firer. Are you game to hunt 'em down?'

'Kemp?' exclaimed Roy, who had of course heard the story of the treachery aboard the 'Cardigan Castle.' 'Kemp, that spy scoundrel—are you sure?'

'Dead certain, though I can't imagine how he got here.'

'More can I, but by the Lord Harry, we'll have his scalp all right. Which way did they go?'

Ken pointed and began to run. Roy raced alongside.

It was the maddest enterprise, and if either had stopped to think they would have realised this fact. Two against four, and the latter armed with a quick-firer! And by way of improving matters, the two had outrun all their companions and were far out in a country swarming with enemy troops.

But Ken thought only of vengeance against the traitor Kemp, and as for Roy, he was the sort to fight till he dropped, and laugh at any odds.

'Where's Dave?' asked Ken, as they tore along, side by side.

'All right when I last saw him about half a mile back,' was the answer. 'Which way have those blighters gone?'

Ken, alone, might have been at a loss to follow, but this was where Roy came in. Brought up on a great cattle run, he could track a stray beast over miles of ranges. It was child's play to him to trace the heavy footmarks over the leaf-strewn floor of the wood.

'Go as quietly as you can,' he whispered to Ken. 'Kemp's quite cute enough to ambush us if he thinks we're on his track.'

It was wonderful how quietly the young giant could move, and Ken, naturally light-footed, followed his example easily. The tracks led uphill, and presently the trees began to thin, and the ground to become more stony.

Then the trees gave out altogether, and they found themselves on the side of a great hill seamed with gullies and covered with low scrub and loose stones.



'There they are!' said Ken in a low voice, pointing to heads just visible over the edge of one of the shallow gullies. 'I tell you what they're after. They're going to emplace that gun somewhere up on the hill-side, and pepper our people on their way back.'

Roy nodded.

'That's about the size of it. Well, it's up to us to spoil their little game. We must work up along the next gully parallel with them and get a slap at 'em over the edge.'

'That's the tip,' said Ken, 'but mind, we've got to bust up the gun itself as well as the men with it.'

Bending double so as not to be seen, the two scurried up the parallel gully until they reckoned that they must be on a level with the gun and its crew.

'It's going to be a stalk now,' whispered Roy, and dropping on hands and knees, crept cautiously over the side of the gully.

On the ridge he stopped.

'Hang the luck!' he muttered. 'They've gone a lot farther than I reckoned. They're a couple of hundred yards away, and still moving. What's worse, the two gullies bend away from one another, and there's no cover to speak of.'

Ken crept up alongside, and took a look.

'It's a bit awkward,' he admitted. 'But they're taking it easy. We ought to be able to make fair practice from here.'

Roy nodded.

'All right. You take the left-hand man. I'll try for the right.'

A couple of seconds pause, then the two rifles spoke at once. Ken's man went down like a log, but Roy apparently missed his.

Roy gave an angry exclamation and took a rapid second shot.

'Hurrah—nailed him that time,' as he saw the man go over like a shot rabbit.

The remaining Turk, seeing his companions down, turned and made a dead bolt. Kemp, with a cry of rage which came plainly to their ears, rushed after him, apparently with the idea of bringing him back.

Ken and Roy both loosed off at once, but without success, and next instant their quarry was out of sight over the far ridge.

'Rotten luck! It was Kemp we wanted,' growled Roy.

'We want the gun worse,' Ken answered grimly.

Springing up, he dropped into the far gully and began to run towards the gun.

'Watch out for Kemp,' sang out Roy, as he followed. 'He may be laying for us just over the ridge.'

'I thought of that,' answered Ken. 'I'll slip across and have a look.'

Both crept together over the second ridge, but there was no sign of Kemp or of the third Turk. They might have sunk into the ground for all that could be seen of them.

'Now for the gun,' said Ken, as he dropped back into the gully.

They wasted no time at all in reaching it. Beside it lay the two Turks. They were both quite dead.

'Pity we can't take the gun back with us,' said Ken regretfully.

'Why shouldn't we? I'll sling it on my back. It don't weigh more than sixty pounds.'

Ken shook his head.

'It's too far, old chap. We're all of a mile from our own lines. No, I'll take the breech block off, and if you can find a good-sized stone we'll smash the rest of it enough to make it useless.'

Roy at once hove up a rock the size of his head, and raising it high in air brought it down with a shattering crash on the gun. The stout steel barrel twisted under the tremendous shock, the water jacket burst.

'That suit you?' he said.

Ken glanced at the ruins, and smiled.

'Take Krupps all their time to make that serviceable again,' he remarked, and the words were hardly out of his mouth before there came a sudden rush of feet, and Kemp, accompanied by no fewer than eight sturdy-looking Turks, came scrambling over the ridge from the right.

'Don't kill them,' shouted Kemp in Turkish. 'Don't kill them. Take them alive. Ten marks apiece to you if you take them alive.'

The men were on them instantly. There was no time to shoot. Stooping swiftly, Roy swung up the broken barrel of the quick-firer, and with a shout sprang at the Turks, whirling the weighty length of steel around his head.

In his powerful hands it was a fearful weapon. The Turks went down like ninepins. Ken, who grasped his rifle by the barrel was in no way behind his chum. The Turks had not been prepared for such a resistance. Inside ten seconds five of them were down, and the three others had had all they wanted. They ran for their lives.

Kemp had taken no part in the battle. He was standing a little aloof on the upper ground. Roy, having disposed of his assailant, whirled round and made for the man.

Kemp whipped out a repeating pistol and levelled it at his head.

'Drop that or I shoot,' he said viciously.

'No, you don't,' cried Ken.

Ken had seen the pistol in Kemp's hand, and had just had time to get his own rifle to his shoulder, the muzzle levelled full at Kemp's head.

'Drop that pistol, or I'll blow your head off,' he said curtly.

Kemp's lips parted in a snarl, showing his white teeth. For a moment it looked as though he would shoot Roy and take his chances.

But his pluck was not quite equal to it, and the grim, determined look on Ken's face daunted him. With a muttered oath, he dropped the pistol.

'And a very pretty toy, too!' said Roy, springing forward and picking it up. 'A nice new automatic, Roy. We'll keep that as spoils of war.'

'Don't waste time over the pistol,' said Ken sharply. 'Collar the chap himself. He'll be better worth bringing back than a cart load of pistols.'

In an instant Roy's great arms were round Kemp, and lifting him clean off his feet he popped him down in front of Ken.

'Tie him,' said Ken.

'I am an officer,' said Kemp haughtily. 'I will not be bound like a common criminal.'

'You were an English ship's steward when I last saw you,' Ken retorted. 'And engaged in the charming occupation of signalling out of the bathroom port to an enemy submarine.'

It was evidently no news to Kemp that Kenneth Carrington was his adversary of the bathroom. Dark as it had been, he must somehow have recognised him. He glared back defiantly.

'I was serving my country,' he answered with a lofty air.

'And what do you think would have happened to a Britisher who had been caught on a German ship, engaged in an act of such abominable treachery?' returned Ken hotly.

Kemp merely shrugged his shoulders.

'Well, it's not for me to deal with you,' said Ken. 'We'll take him back, Roy, and he'll stand a proper court-martial. Still, as he calls himself an officer, I suppose I must take his parole.'

'Do you give it?' he demanded of Kemp.

Kemp's sallow face had gone white, but whether from fear or rage was doubtful. 'Yes,' he said in a low voice, 'I give my parole.'

They turned, and with Kemp between them, set out at a sharp pace in the direction from which they had come.

From the distance rifles still snapped, and a couple of miles away to the south-west field-guns were booming. But all around was strangely quiet. Ken began to feel a trifle uneasy. He realised that they had got a long way ahead of their comrades, and that the latter had already been recalled.

'Quite nice and peaceful up here, eh, Ken?' said Roy with his cheerful grin.

Before Ken could reply there came a shot from somewhere quite close at hand, and with a sharp cry Ken dropped his rifle.

'Winged, old chap?' said Roy, turning quickly.

As he did so Kemp made a dash, and hurled himself up the slope to the left.

'Never mind me!' cried Ken. 'Catch Kemp. Shoot him. Stop him anyhow.'

Roy flung up his rifle and took a snap shot.

He missed, and before he could pull the trigger a second time, the ex-steward had dived like a weasel into a clump of scrub and was gone.

Roy dashed up the bank in hot pursuit. The moment he showed himself a regular volley of rifle shots rang out, and spinning round he sprang back into the hollow.

'There's about twenty Turks coming hard up the next gully,' he panted. 'We've got to bunk like blazes if we want to save our skins.'



CHAPTER VIII

THE HUNTERS HUNTED

Ken was standing, looking half dazed. His rifle was on the ground, and he was holding his left arm with his right hand.

'Are you hurt, Ken?' asked Roy, and there was real concern in his voice. The two had known one another less than a week, yet each had come to respect and like the other.

'No. I'm not hit. The bullet struck the barrel of my rifle. It numbed my arm for the moment. I'm quite all right, but my rifle's done for, so far as firing goes. Rotten luck, losing Kemp.'

'Never mind Kemp,' said Roy, serious for once. 'These Turkish Johnnies are between us and home. And they're after us. It'll take us all our time to get clear. Which way are we to go?'

As he spoke a shout came from the next gully. It was Kemp's voice, and he was evidently calling his men up to pursue the two Britishers.

Ken glanced round quickly. He saw at once that it was out of the question to make straight back for their own lines. They would be cut off for a dead certainty. The two other alternatives were to make off to the right or to go straight back up the gully.

But going to the right meant that they would have to climb the right-hand wall of the gully, which was much steeper and higher than that to the left. The result would be that they would be exposed against the sky line to the enemy's fire.

All this flashed through his mind in a couple of seconds, and he instantly took his decision.

'We must go back up the gully, Roy,' he said sharply. 'It's absolutely our only chance.'

'Any way, so long as we don't drop into the clutches of that swine Kemp,' said Roy. 'I fancy I see him giving us any parole.'

He whipped round as he spoke, and the two set to running steadily up the gully. As they passed the scene of their late encounter where the bodies of the dead Turks lay by the broken machine gun, Ken stooped quickly and picked up one of their rifles, and helped himself also to a bandolier of cartridges.

This caused only a few seconds delay, yet before they were under way again, there came a crackle of shots from below, and bullets whizzed uncomfortably close about their ears.

Luckily for them, a few yards farther up was a bend in the course of the ravine, and once round that they were safe for the moment.

Safe for the moment—yes—but the prospect before them was not exactly inviting, and Ken's lips tightened as he and Roy strained onwards up the hill-side, which grew steeper with every yard.

They were going straight away from their own people, right into the heart of the enemy country, and rack his brains as he might, Ken could see no plan for getting back. There was nothing for it but to try to shake off their pursuers and trust to chance for the rest.

Neither of them was very fresh, for they had been fighting and running for the better part of two hours. Even so, they managed to keep ahead of the Turks, and though every now and then a few shots came rattling up from below they had got far enough ahead to be out of easy range.

They were now at a considerable height, but still a long way from the top of the hill. The scrub was thinning out and the ground becoming more and more stony. The worst of it was that the ravine up which they were travelling was getting steadily more shallow. A very little farther, and it ended altogether. Beyond, was nothing but bare hill-side, where they would—barring the scattered rocks—be in full view of the enemy.

Ken dropped to a walk.

'This won't do, Roy. Once we're out in the open, we shall be the very finest kind of targets.'

Roy shrugged his great shoulders.

'There's nothing else for it. We can't make a ravine. What price taking up a position here behind these rocks and trying to fight 'em off? We've got plenty of cartridges.'

Ken shook his head.

'No earthly use. They could get round above us. We shouldn't have a dog's chance.'

'Then we'd best shift on topside,' replied Roy coolly. 'They can't get above us there unless they raise a balloon. Come on, old man, we can dodge in and out among these rocks.'

Ken glanced back down the hill. Already the first of their pursuers were in sight round the curve of the ravine, barely three hundred yards away. They were jogging along quite steadily. It was clear that they felt absolutely sure of their men—so sure that there was no need to hurry. Kemp, conspicuous in his ugly German khaki, was shepherding them upwards.

Ken bit his lip. Inwardly he vowed that he would never be taken alive by the ex-steward. He had a pretty shrewd idea of what his fate and Roy's would be if they fell into Kemp's clutches.

'Come on, then,' he said desperately, and springing up over the shallow bank of the ravine made a rush for the spot where the rocks seemed to be thickest.

A shout from below told them that their manoeuvre was observed.

'They're spreading out,' said Roy, looking back over his shoulder.

'They're not shooting, anyhow,' answered Ken, as, bent double, he ran hard alongside his companion.

'I suppose they think they've got us anyhow,' said Roy. 'Ken, I'd give a lot to disappoint the dear Kemp.'

Up and up they went, bearing a little to the right because it was on that side that the stones lay thickest. They were still both going strong, and were, if anything, increasing the distance between themselves and their pursuers. A little spark of hope began to dawn in Ken's breast. It seemed just possible that they might still outrun the slower-going Turks, and crossing the ridge, find shelter in the valley below. There was one point in their favour. The sun was dropping low in the west. It would be dark in little more than an hour.

Roy seemed to guess his thoughts.

'We'll do 'em down yet, Ken,' he said.

Almost as he spoke he pulled up short, and flung out his arm just in time to stop Ken from plunging right over the sheer edge of a tremendous gorge that gashed the face of the mountain like a slice from a giant's knife.

For an instant both stood breathing hard, staring down into the darksome depths below. Then Ken turned to Roy.

'That's why they weren't hurrying,' he said bitterly.

For once Roy seemed cooler than Ken. Throwing himself flat on his face, he wriggled forward till nearly half his body was over the edge.

'Hold my legs,' he said, and Ken, horrified at the other's rashness, obeyed.

A moment later he was on his feet again. There was a queer glimmer in his eyes.

'There's a chance yet. I've spotted a ledge. Don't count on it. I don't know whether we can reach it. But it's worth trying. Come on.'

He hurried back down the edge of the cliff for about thirty paces, then looked over again.

'Here it is. It's a goodish way down. But I've tackled places as bad in the North Island mountains. Will you risk it?'

'I'd risk anything rather than Kemp,' Ken answered curtly.

'Then I'll go first. Lie down on your face, and give me your hands. Quickly. Those beggars mustn't see us.'

Ken obeyed instantly. He knew nothing of mountaineering himself, but realised that Roy did. Without a moment's hesitation Roy turned round with his back to the ravine, and catching Ken's hands, let himself drop quietly till his long body dangled at full length against the face of the cliff.



The strain on Ken's arms was awful. The depths below made his head swim. But he set his teeth, dug his toes into the earth, and held on like grim death.

'Let go,' said Roy briefly.

To Ken it seemed as though he were dropping his friend into the awful abyss. But he obeyed without hesitation.

There was a second of ghastly suspense. Then Roy was standing on the almost invisible ledge, balancing himself, spreadeagled against the face of the rock.

His hands moved slowly, the fingers groping for a hold. He found it, and clutching tightly with his left, raised his right hand.

'My bayonet,' he said quickly.

Ken slipped it out of its socket and gave it him.

Roy took it and carefully and deliberately drove it into a crevice in the rock on a level with his head.

'Chuck the rifles over,' he said. 'You mustn't leave them.'

Ken obeyed. A hollow crash came up from the black depths.

'Now I'm ready for you,' said Roy. His voice was so cool and steady that it gave Ken some confidence. 'Get as good a grip as you can and let go when I tell you.'

For a moment it seemed to Ken that he could not do what was asked. In any matter of fighting he was Roy's equal—indeed his superior, for he was better able to keep his head in the thick of it.

But he had had no experience of heights, and the blood ran cold in his veins at the idea of dropping over this terrific precipice. It seemed to him the only possible result must be that he would knock Roy off his narrow perch, and that they would go crashing together into the yawning depths of the abyss.

'You're not scared, are you?'

The contempt in Roy's tones stung Ken to the quick. He hesitated no longer. Turning quickly, he clutched the rocky ledge and recklessly swung himself down.

'Good man! I knew you could do it. Steady now! I've got you. Let go!'

Once more Ken obeyed. He fully believed that he was going to his doom. Instead, to his intense surprise, he found himself balancing on the ledge beside Roy.

Roy gave a low laugh.

'Sorry I insulted you, old man. I just had to. I know the sort of funk that takes you the first time you try this kind of game. And I give you my word there are precious few chaps would have stuck it at all.'

'Now I'll tell you something to console you,' he continued. 'The ledge widens to my right, and runs in under a big overhang. Once we're under that, we're as safe as rats in a granary. No one can see us from up above or from anywhere else, so far as that goes.'

Ken hardly heard. It seemed as if every energy he possessed was needed just to cling where he was, flattened like a dead mole nailed on a keeper's gibbet.

Roy went on talking in a low quiet voice, which gradually brought back Ken's confidence, and though his heart was thumping, and he felt as though it was impossible to draw a full breath, he presently managed to follow his companion along the ledge.

As Roy had said, it gradually widened, and after going very carefully for a matter of twenty feet it grew broad enough to walk on with some degree of safety.

A minute later, and they were in a deep hollow—almost a cave and absolutely hidden from all inquisitive eyes.

Roy laughed softly as he dropped to a sitting position.

'Gosh, I'd love to see Kemp's face this minute,' he remarked in a low voice. 'He'll be just about fit to tie.'

Ken did not answer. He had dropped down and sat with his back against the river side of the cavity, breathing hard. His face was very white, and big drops of perspiration beaded his forehead.

Roy glanced at him with some anxiety. Then he fumbled in the pocket of his tunic and brought out a small leather-covered flask.

'I've carried this ever since I left home,' he said. 'I reckoned it would come in useful some time. Take a sip of it.'

It was fine old Australian brandy, and although Ken took no more than a mouthful the effects were immediate. A tinge of colour came back to his cheeks, and his heart steadied at once.

'Proper stuff, eh?' smiled Roy, as Ken handed back the flask.

Ken held up his hand sharply. 'Listen!' he whispered.

Above their heads they heard heavy footsteps. Then came Kemp's voice.

'What's he saying?' whispered Roy.

'He's telling 'em to hunt among the rocks,' answered Ken in an equally low voice. 'He seems to be annoyed. He's using all the bad language he knows, and chucking in German swears where he can't remember the Turkish ones.'

'Must be a bit of a facer for him,' chuckled Roy.

'There's one of the Turks answering him,' said Ken. 'Says we must have jumped over to escape them.'

'Oh, that's Kemp again,' continued Ken. 'He's telling 'em to go down and see.'

'And what's the Turk say?' Roy asked eagerly.

'He says no one has ever been to the bottom, and couldn't get there if they wanted to. He calls it the ditch of Shaitan—in other words, the Devil's Dyke. By Jove, he's started Kemp cursing again. Wonderful flow of language the chap's got.'

Presently the voices above died away.

'So far as I can make out, they're going to have a try farther up the hill,' said Ken. 'It's lucky they didn't think of looking for our tracks. If they'd used their eyes they must have seen the place where we got over. I know I dug my toes in a good two inches when I was hanging on to you.'

Roy grinned.

'Thank goodness, tracking is about the last thing that would occur to a German. All the same, Kemp is quite cute enough to leave a guard posted here to watch for us.'

Ken looked rather startled.

'I hadn't thought of that, but it's very likely. Then it looks as if we should have to stay here all night.'

'I'd made up my mind to that already,' Roy answered. 'But it might be worse. We've got shelter and we're absolutely safe. Also we have our emergency rations, so we shan't starve. We ought to get a decent sleep for once in a way.'

'What—sleep on the edge of this precipice!'

'Why not? I've slept in worse places before now.'

'Supposing one rolled over in one's sleep?' said Ken with a slight shiver as he peered over into the awesome depths below.

Roy laughed softly.

'Don't worry. You shall sleep between me and the rock. It'll take you all your time to roll over me.'

The sun was down, darkness was already shrouding the depths of space beneath them. The Turks seemed to have left. At any rate, Ken and Roy could hear no more of them. The evening silence was broken only by the mysterious whisper of the evening breeze as it stole down the canon, and by a faint and distant popping of rifle shots.

Roy stretched his long legs and yawned.

'I'm for supper,' he observed, as he took his iron ration out of his haversack. 'We'll share this to-night, Ken, and breakfast off yours in the morning. Luckily I've still got some water in my bottle.'

The emergency or iron ration consists mainly of concentrated beef, biscuit, and chocolate. There is not much of it, so far as bulk goes, but it is very sustaining. Roy carefully divided his into two lots, and they ate slowly, and finished their slim repast with a drink of water.

Then, after chatting a while, they stretched themselves out to sleep. Roy, according to his promise, made Ken take the inner side, and in spite of his nervousness, he slept like a log.

Ken roused at earliest dawn. A thin mist floated beneath them, hiding the depths of the ravine. Musketry still crackled in the distance, but all around was very still.

Ken shivered slightly, for the morning air bit chill. He sat up and shook Roy, who was still sleeping peacefully.

'Daylight,' said Ken briefly. 'Time to get out of this.'

Roy sat up and stretched his great frame.

'What a life!' he said with a laugh. 'Yes, I suppose we'd best be shifting.'

'Shall we breakfast now, or wait till we get up topside?' asked Ken.

Roy gave him a quick look.

'It might be as well to feed now,' he said quietly. 'You see, I haven't a notion how we're going to get out of this.'

Ken stared. Such a point of view had never occurred to him. He had such implicit faith in Roy's mountaineering capacity that he had taken it absolutely for granted that Roy could find a way back to firm ground.



CHAPTER IX

THE BATTLE BY ROCKS

Roy saw Ken's dismay.

'Sorry, old chap,' he said simply. 'I thought you understood.'

Ken smiled back.

'I'm afraid I took it for granted that you had it all pat. You see, I don't know the first thing about mountaineering myself. Can't we get back the same way we came?'

Roy shook his head.

'It's too big a reach. But don't worry. We'll find some way out. Stop here a minute and I'll go and have a squint round.'

Ken looked at him.

'You'll be careful, Roy? Hadn't I better come and give you a hand?'

'I'll call you if I want you,' said Roy. 'I'm going to see where this ledge leads.'

He strolled off as calmly as though walking along a twelve-inch ledge over a two hundred foot drop was as simple as a promenade down the sunny side of Piccadilly. Ken, feeling anything but happy, watched him until he was hidden behind a shoulder of rock.

It was quite five minutes before he came back.

'It's all right,' he said cheerfully. 'True, we can't get up, but I think we can get down. This ledge drops a long way, and there seems to be another below it. Let's have our grub and go along.'

He ate his share of Ken's rations with evident appetite, and Ken did his best to follow his example. But it would be idle to say that Ken felt happy. Glancing down into the tremendous depths that yawned below, he felt that he would infinitely rather charge a score of Turks, single-handed, than try to make his way down the face of the gigantic wall of rock.

Roy finished his food, brushed the crumbs from his tunic, and taking the bayonet which—with the automatic pistol captured from Kemp—were the only weapons they had, walked off along the ledge.

Ken set his teeth and followed.

'Look up, not down,' said Roy quietly, and Ken did his best to obey.

The ledge, though narrow, did not really present any particular difficulties. As Roy said, 'If it wasn't for the big drop below, you wouldn't think twice about it.'

Ken knew this was true, and tried hard to keep it in his mind.

Presently, however, the ledge began to narrow again, and the only way to tackle it was to flatten themselves, limpet-like, against the cliff face, and claw their way onwards, gripping every possible little projection which gave any sort of hand hold.

At last Roy pulled up.

'Capital!' he said. 'You're doing first-rate, Ken. That's as far as we can go on this ledge. We've got to drop to the lower one now. Don't worry. It's not as bad as that first drop we had to do last night.'

As he spoke, he stooped, gripped the edge of the ledge with his hands, and let himself down gently. There was a knob of rock about seven feet down. He got his feet on this, then reached up for the bayonet which Ken held.

As before, he jammed this into a crevice so as to give himself something to hold by, then signalled Ken to follow.

Ken's heart was in his mouth. The projection seemed hardly large enough for one pair of feet, let alone two. But when he reached it he found that Roy had left it all for him. He himself had stepped off, driving his toes into a mere crevice alongside.

'Keep hold of the bayonet till I tell you to move,' came Roy's quiet voice. 'Afraid we'll have to leave it where it is. We can't shift it again. That's right.'

'Now get your fingers into that crack to the right. I'm going to move your feet for you.'

What Roy was doing Ken could not tell, and he dared not look. But a moment later he felt the big fellow's hands shifting his feet.

There came a sharp rattle of falling stones, a quick gasp.

A spasm of fright clutched him. For the moment he fully believed that Roy had fallen.

'Roy! he cried sharply. 'Roy!'

'All right, old man. It's quite all right. Just a chunk of rock broken out. The stuff's a bit rotten, but I've got good hand hold.'

A pause. Then, 'Now you can move.'

Again Roy's strong hands shifted his feet. Twice more this happened; then just as he began to feel that he could stand the strain no longer, he heard Roy's jolly laugh.

'We've done it. One step more, and you're on the ledge.'

A moment later, and they stood together on a ledge nearly a yard wide. It seemed like a turnpike road compared to the one above.



Roy drew a long breath.

'That was a bad bit,' he said. 'As bad as anything I ever struck. Don't mind telling you now, Ken, that I was in a blue funk.'

'You didn't show it,' Ken answered rather breathlessly. 'If you had, I believe I should have crocked.'

'You didn't, anyhow. That's the main thing. And I wouldn't ask a better man to go climbing with. You kept your head, and did what you were told. Well, now I think the worst is over. This looks like a regular fault in the strata, and it ought to take us to the bottom.

Roy's judgment was correct. There were still some nasty places, but nothing like what they had already tackled, and within another quarter of an hour they had reached the bottom of the gorge.

A little stream ran down the centre, finding its way among piled masses of fallen rock. On each side the cliffs towered so high that only a mere slit of sky was visible. It was as wild and gloomy a spot as Ken had ever seen.

'I've seen better walking,' observed Roy, as a flat stone slipped under his foot, and nearly pitched him over into the bed of the brook.

'It's better than that abominable cliff, anyhow,' returned Ken. 'But I'd give something to know where we're going.'

'I can tell you. The sea. If we follow the stream we're bound to reach salt water.'

'But where?' said Ken—'where? I don't know that I've got the points of the compass very clear in my head, and there's no sun visible yet, but if I'm not mistaken, this brook runs east, not west.'

Roy pulled up with a puzzled expression on his face.

'Pon my Sam, I believe you're right. In that case, this is the head waters of some stream that runs out into the Straits.'

'That's my notion, and consequently we're still going plumb in the wrong direction.'

'We can't help it,' said Roy. 'It's no use trying to climb up the far side over the top of the hill.'

'Not a bit. The first thing to do is to get out of this gorge. After that we must see if we can't skirt round the base of the hill, and get back somehow.'

Roy nodded, and for some distance they continued on their uncomfortable way in silence.

'Not much more of it,' said Roy at last. 'We're getting near the mouth now.'

'And that's where our troubles are going to begin,' said Ken with a smile. 'It looks to me as if we were the best part of three miles inland.'

'Which means that we've got to get through the whole bunch of the Turks,' answered Roy. 'I say, don't you wish we'd got our whole crowd up here? We'd take the enemy in the rear and play old Harry with them.'

'No use wishing that. But I'll tell you what, Roy. If we ever do get back we'll have some useful information for the colonel.'

Roy nodded, as he scrambled on to the top of a big rock.

'I can see out of the mouth of the gorge from here,' he said, as he stood on the summit, 'and by the look of the country you're about right as to the course of this brook. We're the other side of the water-shed altogether.'

Ken clambered up beside him. A couple of hundred yards farther down the gorge ended, or rather turned into a shallow ravine, down which the stream found its way into a broad valley below. A rough track crossed this valley, and Ken pointed to figures looking no bigger than dolls in the distance, which moved along it.

'Reinforcements coming up,' he said. 'They'll be from Kojadere. We must keep clear of that road. Seems to me the best thing we can do is to swing to the right and work round the shoulder of the hill.'

'Yes, if we can find cover. Well, there's nothing to stop us from climbing up here. The bank don't amount to anything.'

He was right, and turning at once they scrambled up the steep rocky slope. It was broken with projecting crags, and almost covered with brush, which gave them ample cover. Reaching the top, they got a sight of the sun, and found that they were facing almost due east. The guns were still thundering behind them, but their sound was deadened by the great mass of hill which lay between them and the sea.

The hill-side was thick with scrub and there was no difficulty about getting forward. They went on steadily, and had travelled about half a mile when they entered a little wood. Passing through this, they were dismayed to find themselves on the edge of a steep bank about sixty feet high, with the track running at the bottom of it, and, beyond, a wide space of open valley rising again to a hill opposite.

'This is no use,' said Roy. 'We're bound to be spotted if we try to cross that open.'

'No, we must keep on this side for the present,' answered Ken, as he turned back into the trees.

Presently they heard a tramping of feet, and peering through the leaves saw a body of Turkish troops, about a hundred strong, marching stolidly along beneath them.

'My word, if we only had a maxim!' muttered Roy, as he stared at the closely-formed column. 'Couldn't we make hay of 'em?'

Ken did not answer. He watched the men pass on until they were out of sight around a curve in the track. Then he and Roy moved on again.

Round the next bend, they found themselves at the end of the friendly wood, and the ground beyond was a deal more open than seemed healthy.

'We'll have to wait until those chaps are well out of the way,' said Ken, and calmly sat himself down on a big stone, one of many which lay among the tree trunks.

'Hope they'll hurry,' said Roy rather viciously. 'I'm infernally hungry. I want to get back to my dinner.'

While Ken rested Roy stood staring out through the tree trunks.

Presently he turned to Ken. 'Tell you what, Ken, I believe there's a chance for us now. There's another patch of wood less than a quarter of a mile away, and if we watched our chance we might slip across without being spotted. Beyond it, the ground rises again, with a lot of rocks and scrub. Plenty of cover at any rate. What do you think?'

Ken got up and took a long and careful survey.

'It looks all right,' he said at last. 'I'm game to try it anyhow.'

'Then the sooner the better. Those Turks have topped the rise.'

They were on the point of starting when Ken heard a sound which made him seize Roy's arm.

'Steady a minute! There's something else coming up the track.'

They dropped flat and lay waiting. Sure enough, there was a low rumble of wheels, and after a few minutes a team of mules came into sight around the left-hand curve, dragging a field-piece, and accompanied by about a dozen Turkish gunners.

'Just as well we waited,' whispered Roy. 'We shouldn't have stood much show if we'd dropped down under their noses, eh?'

Ken did not answer. He was staring fixedly at the gun. His eyes were very bright.

He turned to Roy.

'That's going to be used to smash our chaps, Roy. Jove, if we could only stop it!'

'Stop it?' repeated Roy in amazement. 'My dear chap, we haven't even got our rifles. They're lying smashed up at the bottom of the gorge. The only weapon we've got left is this automatic.'

'We've got something better than bullets,' Ken answered very quietly. He laid his hand as he spoke upon one of the big loose boulders which lay in front of him.

'See here,' he went on, 'they'll come right underneath us. If we could get this rock down on the team, it would probably stampede the mules. Then before the men have recovered from their confusion, we ought to be able to give them a couple more. If we could land one on top of the gun itself, it would damage it pretty badly, even if it doesn't smash the mountings and make it useless. What do you say?'

'Say—why that it's the greatest scheme ever hatched, and I'm with you every time,' Roy answered, his face glowing with excitement. 'And, by Jingo,' he added, 'if we'd picked the spot for bringing it off, we couldn't have done better.'

This was true enough. The spot where they were perched was fully sixty feet above the road, and the slope below was next door to perpendicular. For another thing, the supply of boulders was unlimited.

The one to which Ken had pointed weighed perhaps a quarter of a ton and was shaped rather like a gigantic egg. He put his weight against it, and found that it rocked, but even so, he could not be quite certain that their combined efforts could start it over the edge.

'Wait!' whispered Roy, and turning slipped away into the thick of the trees. He was back in a minute, carrying a heavy piece of dead timber.

'This ought to do the trick,' he said softly. Ken nodded.

Meantime the Turks below, all unsuspicious of what was brewing, came slowly and steadily along the road. Slowly, because not only is a 77-millimetre gun with its caisson a heavy weight, but also because the road was merely an apology for one. It was nothing but a deeply rutted track thick with sand and loose stones.

The men were in charge of a non-commissioned officer, a Turk like themselves, and consequently were taking it very easy, strolling along, smoking and chatting.

Roy drove his stake deep under the big rock, and gave a slight heave.

'She'll shift all right,' he whispered in a tone of quiet satisfaction.

'All right. Wait till I give the word,' said Ken, with his eyes fixed upon the long gray gun which came jogging slowly onwards, its grim muzzle swaying and lurching as the wheels took the ruts in the road.

It seemed a long time before it came opposite. Then at last Ken gave one word.

'Now!'

In an instant they were both on their feet, Roy tugging on the lever, Ken bracing all his weight on the big rock.

It moved, it rolled slowly over, seemed to pause a moment on the edge of the bank, then suddenly shot forward. Ten feet below, it alighted on the slope, rebounded, and at the same time started half a dozen other stones. In a moment a rock avalanche was roaring down the steep. The great stone led the way. In a series of gigantic leaps, each longer than the last, it thundered downwards, at each jump starting fresh tons of the loose shale which covered the bank.

A cloud of dust rose like smoke, and hid all below. Then from out the cloud came squeals and shrieks.

In their excitement, Ken and Roy actually forgot to send fresh stones to follow the first. There was no need. When the dust cloud cleared, one mule which had broken loose was galloping madly across country, the rest were down and dead.

The gun, dismounted, was half buried in a pile of shale which lay feet deep across the road. Of the men, not one remained. Most were not only dead, but buried. Two only lay clear, and to all appearance they were as dead as their companions.

Roy looked at Ken.

'What you might call a clean bit of work,' he said, but though he tried to smile, there was something like awe in his voice.

'Yes. A ten-inch shell could hardly have done more,' Ken answered. 'Poor beggars! It's rather ghastly wiping 'em out like that, but one has got to remember that that gun would have probably finished ten times the number of our chaps if they'd got it into position.

'We'd better go down,' he added. 'We may find a couple of rifles, and I'll lay we shall need them before we reach our own lines.'

It was an awkward job to get down the bank, for the shale was so loose it kept breaking away under their feet. They had to go quickly, too, for there was every chance of fresh reinforcements or more guns coming up the road.

Fortunately no one else appeared, and in a very few minutes they were busy hunting among the pile of rocks for rifles that had escaped injury. They found three, but only one was serviceable. The sights of the others were damaged. They also found food. It was bread, dark-looking and very stale, and goats' milk cheese.

But they were far too hungry to be particular. They stuffed it into their pockets.

At that moment came a deep groan from among the rocks.

Ken swung round sharply.

'There's one of 'em alive in there,' he said quickly, 'we can't leave the poor beggar to die by inches.'



He began rolling the stones aside, and guided by the groans he and Roy soon pulled out a youngish Turk and laid him on the side of the road.

Ken examined him quickly.

'He's got off cheaply,' he said. 'Nothing broken—nothing the matter, so far as I can see, except bruises and a cut on the head. Give him a drop of your brandy, Roy.'

As Roy unscrewed the stopper, the Turk's eyes opened, and he stared up at his rescuers in blank amazement.

'Englishmen!' he muttered.

Roy put the flask to his lips, but he shook his head.

'Water,' he said in Turkish.

'It's against his religion to drink wine or spirits,' Ken explained to Roy, and put his own water-bottle to the man's lips.

'I thank you,' said the Turk with grave courtesy. He sat up and looked round at the ruin on the road.

'We did not know that your guns were near enough to drop shell upon us,' he said. 'Nor had we any notion that your troops had advanced so far inland.

'Well, it is Allah's will,' he continued resignedly. 'And our fate for being driven into an unjust war. I am your prisoner.'

'We don't want any prisoners,' Ken answered with a smile, and at his fluent Turkish the man's dark eyes opened in evident surprise. 'You are free.'

The Turk stared.

'Then you are separated from your own regiment,' he said keenly, and by his accent and language, Ken realised that he was a man of some education.

Ken did not answer.

'Your pardon, effendi,' said the Turk. 'I did not mean to ask idle questions. I thank you for your kindness, and I wish you happiness.'

'Come on, Ken,' broke in Roy, who was scanning the country uneasily. 'We are right out in the open here. That chap will be all right. Let's get into that wood as sharp as we can.'

'One moment,' said Roy, and turned to the Turk.

'If you care to do us a good turn, tell us the nearest way back to Gaba Tepe.'

The Turk pointed up the road.

'That is the nearest way, but, I need not tell you, the most dangerous. Our lines lie between here and the British. You must wait for the darkness of the night or you will for a certainty be captured. My advice to you is to conceal yourselves among the trees in the wood, and wait until the sun shall have set.'

'I thank you,' said Ken courteously. 'Is there anything else in which we can assist you?'

'There is nothing, I thank you. I will rest a while, then move onwards. In the name of the Prophet, I wish you a safe journey.'

'What tale was he pitching you?' said Roy impatiently, as he set off at a great rate for the wood opposite.

'He advised us to lie up for the rest of the day, and try to slip through their lines at night.'

Roy grunted. 'And I suppose he'll watch where we go and set his pals on us as soon as they come along.'

'He will do nothing of the sort,' Ken answered rather hotly. 'For goodness' sake, don't go judging the Turk by the German, Roy. That fellow considers that we have done him a favour, and nothing would induce him to betray us.'

'Sorry I spoke,' said Roy briefly, 'but you were so long I was getting into a horrid stew. Even now, one can't tell whether we've been spotted, and it isn't likely that the next German who comes along is going to be kind to us when he sees what we've done to his nice new gun.'

No more was said until they reached the wood and flung themselves panting under the shade of a scrubby live oak.

'Now we can take a bit of a breather,' said Roy. 'And a bit of lunch, too. Here, catch!' He flung a chunk of bread across to Ken.

But Ken had sprung up. He was listening keenly.

'Bunk!' he muttered. 'There's cavalry coming.'



CHAPTER X

PRISONERS

Roy was on his feet like a flash, for he too had caught the thud of horses' hoofs and the jingle of stirrups. For a moment the two stood, side by side, behind the trunk of the live oak, peering out over the sunbaked plain. Across it a patrol of cavalry, smart in a gray-blue uniform, were cantering sharply.

'They're making straight for the wood,' said Ken quickly. 'They must be after us. Come!'

They both set off at a run, dodging and ducking under the low-growing trees. For a moment they thought they were unobserved, but next instant a shout rudely shattered that illusion. They scurried on as hard as they could go, but the wood was so open and the trees so far apart that it gave mighty little shelter. The patrol had broken into a gallop. The thud of the horses' hoofs grew nearer every moment.

'That thicket over there,' panted Ken breathlessly. 'We'll dodge them yet if we can reach it.'

But between them and it was a good hundred yards of almost open ground, and the leader of the patrol saw their manoeuvre, and shouted an order. His men split out fan-wise and before Ken and Roy were half way across the open, came a thunder of hoofs, and half a dozen of the troopers came galloping upon them from the left.

Ken flung up his captured rifle, and fired slap at the first. The bullet caught the horse between the eyes and down he came with a crash, flinging his rider far over his head.

But the next was too close to dodge. Ken caught the flash of sun on a lancehead bearing straight down upon him. He sprang aside, the lancehead missed him by inches, then the shoulder of the horse caught him with stunning force and hurled him to the ground.

Before he could pick himself up, three of the troopers were off their horses, and had flung themselves upon him. He was hauled roughly to his feet, his rifle snatched from his hand, and his cartridge-pouch torn away. A few yards away, Roy, his face bleeding, was the centre of another group who were disarming him in spite of his struggles.

Ken glanced at his captors. He saw that they were Turkish constabulary, and his heart sank. These men, trained by Germans, paid by them, and soaked in their brutal tenets, were among the small minority of Turks who had really come to share the German hatred of the British.

They glared fiercely at their prisoners.

'British swine!' growled one, and spat in contempt.

'They are spies,' said another. 'We find them three miles behind our lines. Why do we waste time taking them prisoners? Let us hang them and be done with them.'

'Why not let them run and ride them down?' suggested another. 'Sticking with a lance is a fit fate for hogs.'

But the sergeant, a tall, swarthy faced man with a pair of fierce black eyes, pushed his way forward.

'Fools, these are the men who escaped last night from Captain Hartmann. We have his orders to bring them before him. It will go hard with you if you disobey. Shackle them both, and send them to him under guard.'

He flung down two pairs of handcuffs, and one of the men who was holding Ken picked them up, while another seized his wrists.

It was on the tip of Ken's tongue to protest fiercely against this indignity, but he checked himself. It would be better, he remembered, that these men should not know that he spoke their language.

Roy was fighting like a fury. Three of the troopers had their work cut out to hold him. As it was, he managed to get one hand loose, and before the others could seize it again one of their number lay insensible on the ground with his nose broken and flattened against his face.

'Steady, Roy!' cried Ken. 'These swabs are no better than Germans. They'll only frog-march us or something equally beastly if we resist.'

'But handcuffs!' roared Roy in a fury. 'D'ye think I'm going to be handcuffed like a common criminal?'

'They think we're spies,' Ken answered. 'They're going to take us to headquarters. It's no use resisting. We must wait our chance.'

Sullenly Roy ceased struggling, and the handcuffs were snapped on his wrists. The sergeant who seemed in a hurry, gave brief orders, and galloped on with most of his patrol, leaving a lower grade officer, probably a corporal, with half a dozen men.

These mounted.

'March!' ordered the corporal, an undersized, vicious-looking fellow, giving Ken a prick with his lance. 'And keep going, or, by Allah, it will be more than a prick you will get next time.'

Side by side, Ken and Roy stumbled forward, while their captors cursed or jeered them in language which Roy fortunately could not understand, although to Ken every word of it was only too plain. From something the corporal let drop, he learnt that they were being taken, not to Kojadere, but to Eski Keni, which lies in the middle of the peninsula, about half-way between Gaba Tepe and Maidos.

He told this to Roy, speaking in an undertone, as they tramped rapidly onwards under the threat of the lance-points behind them.

'And the man they are taking us before seems to be Kemp,' said Ken. 'Only they call him Hartmann. It appears he was cute enough to suspect that we had hidden ourselves somewhere last night, and these fellows were sent out to look for us.'

'And I wish we had both gone over the cliff before they found us,' Roy answered, gritting his teeth. The disgrace of the handcuffs was biting deep into his soul. Ken had never seen him in such a mood before.

Ken himself was none too happy. It took all his pluck and philosophy to keep going at all. He was aching in every bone, his mouth and throat were parched, and his tongue like a dry stick in his mouth. The dust rose around them in choking clouds, flies bit and stung, yet he could not lift a hand to brush them from his face. What was hardest of all to bear were the jeers and insults flung at them by their captors.

But they trudged on doggedly, refusing to pay the slightest attention to the taunts or blows showered upon them, and in spite of everything, Ken used his eyes to take in every feature of the country through which they travelled. Small hope as he had of ever seeing again his own lines, yet he missed nothing of importance, storing up each hill, valley, clump of trees, and track in his tenacious memory.

At last they came within sight of a group of squalid hovels in a valley.

'That's Keni,' Ken told Roy.

The brutal corporal caught the word.

'That's Keni,' he repeated in his own language, 'and, by the beard of the Prophet, you shall soon see how spies are dealt with.'

The village swarmed with soldiers, many of them wounded, who stared at the two British prisoners with lack-lustre eyes. The narrow street of the place reeked with filth and foul odours, and swarmed with a pestilence of flies. The two youngsters were thrust roughly into a dirty hovel, and with a final jeer from their brutal jailer, the door was locked behind them.

For a moment Roy stood straight, towering in the centre of the low-roofed room. There was a very ugly light in his eyes.

'Wait, my friend, wait!' he said hoarsely. 'I'll be even with you before I've finished.'

'Steady, old chap!' said Ken quietly. 'Steady! Take it easy while you can. Remember, we've got that little interview with Kemp before us.'

Roy flung himself down with a gasp.

'It's all right, Ken. I'll calm down after a bit. But heaven pity that black-moustached blighter if I ever get my hands on him.'

Ken tried to answer, but suddenly dropped flat on the bare earthen floor. His eyes closed. Instantly he was sound asleep. Roy stared at him vaguely, yawned, and before he knew it had slipped down and followed his example.

So they lay, happily oblivious of their troubles, all through the blazing afternoon. The sun was setting when the door was flung open and the sharp-faced corporal strode in.

He roused them with a kick apiece.

'Get up, British dogs,' he ordered. 'Captain Hartmann awaits you.'

The sleep had refreshed them, and though stiff and sore they were both in condition so fit and hard that they were little the worse for their trying experiences of the night and morning.

Under charge of a guard, they were marched rapidly up the street to where a few larger flat-topped houses stood on slightly higher ground. Through an open door they were driven along a passage and out into a courtyard open to the sky, with a fountain in the centre.

At a table, under the shade of a grape arbour, sat two German officers, one of whom was a typical Prussian, fair, with hard blue eyes and close cropped hair, while the other was their old friend, the ex-steward Kemp, otherwise Hartmann.

An ugly light shone in his deep-set, narrow eyes as they fell on the two prisoners.

'Soh!' he said, with a evil smile, 'my young friends, the spies! Achmet'—this to the corporal—'you have done well. I will see that your conduct and that of your sergeant is recommended in the proper quarter.'

He turned to his companion.

'Ober-lieutenant von Steegman,' he said formally. 'The prisoners are those of whom I spoke last night to Colonel Henkel. Disguised in the overcoats of Turkish soldiers, they contrived to destroy one of our quick-firers, and to-day they were discovered hiding in a wood behind our lines. They had, it appears, been plundering our wounded, for food and a Turkish rifle were found in their possession.'

Ken could not speak German, but he knew enough of the language to gather the meaning of the man's infamous accusations. 'Liar!' he burst in. 'We were never in Turkish uniform. As for the gun, we took it in fair fight, and as—'

At a sign from Hartmann, Achmet, the corporal, struck Ken across the mouth.



It was probably the last thing he ever did in his life, for Roy, raising his shackled hands, brought them down upon the man's head with such fearful force that he dropped like a log, the blood gushing from his mouth and ears.

Instantly all was confusion. Hartmann sprang to his feet, shouting out furious orders. Two of the guard seized Roy and flung him to the ground, two more laid hands on Ken. Another drew his bayonet, and Ken saw it flash in the evening sunlight before his very eyes.

It was Von Steegman who sprang forward and seized the man's arm just in time.

'No. Leave him alone,' he cried harshly. 'The colonel has left express orders that he wishes to see these men before they are executed. Stand aside! It is only a short delay. They will both be shot at sundown.'

Von Steegman, if a brute, had ten times the physical power and moral force of Hartmann. The man obeyed at once, and in a few moments order was restored. Two men carried away the insensible form of Achmet, Roy watching with a grim smile.

Ken had hardly thought of his own danger. His lips were bleeding, and the foul blow had for the moment rendered him perfectly reckless.

'Is this the way you treat prisoners? he thundered, his eyes blazing. 'Small wonder a people who do such things are despised by every other nation on earth!'

'Himmel, you dare to talk like that?' snarled back Hartmann. 'You, a private soldier, venture such insolence to an officer?'

Ken was already ashamed of his outburst.

'An officer!' he said with bitter contempt, 'or do you mean a bathroom steward?'

Hartmann's sallow face went livid with excess of rage. He bit his lip till the blood showed upon it in a thin red line.

'You will sing a different song when you stand before the muzzles of the firing party,' he said in a grating voice.

Von Steegman, who seemed to be the only man among them to remain quite unmoved, raised his hand.

'All this is highly irregular,' he said harshly. 'Captain Hartmann, it is our duty to interrogate these prisoners.'

'What's the use of interrogating us if you have already made up your mind to shoot us?' retorted Ken.

Von Steegman glared at him.

'Because,' he answered in his harsh German English, 'it is bossible that, by giving us certain information, you may yed save der lives which you haf justly forfeited.'

Ken stared back, and there was something in his face which made even the German's bold eyes drop.

'I don't advise you to say any more,' he answered grimly. 'You'd better proceed at once with your firing party, you miserable German murderer.'

Von Steegman's hand dropped to his sword hilt, his face went the colour of a ripe plum, for a moment Ken thought—hoped that he was going to have a fit.

Before he could speak there came a stir behind, the door leading from the house to the yard opened sharply, and a stout, coarse-looking man in the uniform of a colonel in the Prussian Army, strode heavily in.

Hartmann and Von Steegman rose like two ramrods, and saluted him. They stood at the salute while he came across to the table.

'So these are the two prisoners,' he said in a thick guttural voice, as he seated himself, 'the two who were captured spying behind our lines.'

He stared first at Roy, then at Ken. As his bloodshot eyes fell upon the latter he started ever so slightly. At the same moment Ken seemed to recognise him, for a look of disgust crossed his face.



CHAPTER XI

THE FIRING PARTY

Hartmann spoke.

'These are the spies, Herr Colonel,' he said with an air of deference. 'They were captured more than two miles behind our lines. We have interrogated them, but they refuse information.'

The colonel looked at Ken.

'Have you nothing to say for yourselves?' he demanded.

'Plenty, but not to you, Colonel Henkel,' replied Ken with a sarcasm he did not trouble to conceal.

Henkel, however, did not lose his temper as Von Steegman had done. He turned to Hartmann and Von Steegman and spoke to them both in a low voice.

'As you wish, Herr Colonel,' said Hartmann presently, but there was an air of distinct disappointment about him.

'Corporal,' said Henkel to the non-com, who had taken the place of the brute whom Roy had finished, 'take the prisoners back and lock them up securely. Set a guard over them.'

'Mind this—that you are responsible for them,' he added harshly.

The man saluted, and Ken and Roy, who had hardly expected to leave the place alive, found themselves marched back down the evil-smelling street and shut up once more in the same hovel as before.

Roy turned to Ken as the key clicked in the lock behind them.

'This is a rum go,' he said in great astonishment. 'What's it mean? Who is the Johnny with the fat tummy and the bloodshot eyes? Why was he so quiet with you? What—?'

'Steady, old man!' cut in Ken. 'One question at a time. Didn't you hear his name?'

'What—Henkel? Yes.'

He broke off with a gasp.

'You don't mean to say he is the sweep that tried to swindle your father out of his coal mine?'

'You've hit it, Roy—hit it in once. That's the very same chap, though I never knew before that he was a colonel. He recognised me as soon as I spotted him.'

'But what's his game?' demanded Roy. 'I should have thought he would have been only too pleased to get you shot out of hand. If your father is dead, you're next heir to the coal.'

'I'm not very clear what he is after,' Ken answered in a puzzled voice. 'But it's something to do with our property, you may be sure of that. This much I do know—that Henkel was awfully in debt when I last saw him. And I know this, too—that our friend, old Othman Pacha, who is Bey in that part of the country, would refuse to let the property pass without proper title deeds.'

'Then it's clear as mud,' said Roy quickly. 'Henkel wants to get the deeds out of you.'

'That may be it. But anyhow I'm not of age. I couldn't sign anything.'

'Don't, anyhow,' said Roy. 'He can't do worse than shoot us.'

But Ken looked very grave. Inwardly, he was thinking that, if Henkel did actually mean to make terms, he had no right to sacrifice Roy's life as well as his own.

At this moment the corporal came in with a platter of food and a pitcher of water. He planked them down without a word, and went out again.

'No use starving ourselves,' said Roy with his usual cheeriness. 'It's a case of "let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die."'

His pluck was wonderful, and they set to as well as their manacled hands permitted, on the coarse barley-meal bread and goats' milk cheese. They had had nothing since their 'emergency' breakfast and they finished the food to the last crumb.

'That's better,' said Roy. 'Now I'm ready for anything.' As he spoke the key turned in the lock, the door opened, and in stumped Henkel. He closed the door behind him, and stood facing the two young fellows.

'So we meet again, Kenneth Carrington,' he said. Like most German officers, he spoke excellent English, though with a thick, unpleasant accent.

Ken did not answer. It did not seem worth while. He stood facing the other, watching him with a slightly contemptuous expression in his clear blue eyes.

'We meet under different conditions from the last time,' continued Henkel. 'There is now no Othman Pacha to protect you from your just fate.'

Ken shrugged his shoulders.

'Why talk that sort of rot? You know just as well as I do that the last thing we shall get is justice.'

Henkel flushed slightly, but he kept his temper.

'What! Do you not shoot spies in your own army?'

'We are not spies. We went too far in the charge yesterday when we smashed up your people. We could not get back. We are prisoners of war and should be treated as such.'

'That is your story,' replied Henkel. 'We have plenty of evidence to the contrary. Any commanding officer would be justified in shooting you out of hand.'

'The evidence against us,' said Ken, 'is that of Kemp, late bathroom steward aboard the "Cardigan Castle," a man who has a personal grudge against me because I caught him signalling to an enemy submarine.'

'Again your unsupported statement,' said Henkel.

'It's the truth,' growled Roy from the background.

'Your evidence in a case like this is valueless,' said Henkel shortly. He turned to Ken again.

'Have you heard from your father since you last saw him?' he asked suddenly.

The question took Ken unawares.

'From my father?' he said, with sudden eagerness. 'No. Is he alive?'

There was a gleam of triumph in Henkel's prominent eyes.

'Yes,' he answered. 'He is alive and—under the circumstances—well.'

'I—I thought' began Ken and stopped.

'You thought that he had been shot,' said Henkel grimly. 'That would indeed have been his fate but for my interference. I used my influence to get his sentence altered to a term of imprisonment.'

Ken changed colour. He found it desperately difficult to keep a cool head. The news that his father was alive had filled him with burning excitement. The two had always been the best of chums, more like an elder and younger brother than father and son.

'Where is he?' he asked sharply.

'At present in Constantinople,' replied Henkel, who was watching Ken keenly. 'But it is likely that he will presently be sent elsewhere.'

'What—into Asia Minor?' said Ken in dismay. Constantinople was bad enough, but nothing to the horrors of the Turkish prisons in Asia.

'Not so far as that. He is to be moved, with others of the British and French, to Gallipoli.'

Ken's cheeks went white. His eyes were full of horror.

'You are perhaps aware,' continued Henkel, 'that the Turkish Government has decided upon this step as a response to the bombardment of unfortified places by your fleet. If Turkish civilians are to be killed, it is only fair that enemy civilians should share their fate.'

'Enver Bey seems to have learnt his German pretty thoroughly,' put in Roy sarcastically.

Henkel's eyes glared as he turned upon him.

'Be silent!' he ordered, with a fury he could hardly repress.

Roy merely smiled, and Henkel turned again to Ken.

'It lies with you whether your father goes to Gallipoli or not,' he said curtly. 'I have sufficient influence to prevent his being sent there.'

'How do you mean?' Ken asked thickly.

'I will tell you plainly. Your father still holds the title deeds of certain property near Ipsala. This property he has, of course, forfeited since his conviction. I wish to purchase this land from the Turkish Government, but owing to the absence of the deeds, which are, apparently, in a London bank, there are difficulties as to the transfer.

'What I require is a letter from you to your father, asking him to authorise the return of these deeds. In return for this small service I will arrange for you and your companion to be treated as prisoners of war and sent to Constantinople, where you will remain until the end of the war, as will also your father.'

He stopped, and stood watching Ken keenly.

Ken was in an agony of indecision. So far as he himself was concerned, he would not have hesitated a moment in refusing the terms offered by Henkel. But there was his father to think of—and Roy.

His voice was strained and harsh as he spoke again.

'How do you know that my father would agree to any such letter, even if I was to write it?' he asked.

'Because,' answered Henkel, 'your life will depend upon a favourable answer.'

Ken paused again.

'Don't do it, Ken,' broke in Roy. 'I don't know your father, but I'm mighty sure he wouldn't stick for this kind of blackmail.'

Henkel swung round on him in a fury.

'Potztausend! Keep silence, fool! Your own life as well as two others depends upon Carrington's answer.'

'I wouldn't give sixpence for my life if I had to keep it on terms like those,' retorted Roy.

'Nor would I,' said Ken sharply. 'And I know my father would say the same. Whatever happens, he would never consent to letting you blackmail him, Colonel Henkel.'

'Blackmail, schelm! What are you talking about? Don't I tell you that by his sentence your father has forfeited all right to any landed property under the Turkish Government?'

'Yes, but that country won't be Turkish any more after the war. And then my younger brother, who is at school at home, will inherit. No, we are not going to cut him out and leave him penniless. Do your worst, Henkel.'

Henkel's great coarse face went livid. He burst into a storm of savage profanity.

'Enough!' he cried at last. 'You have brought your fate upon yourselves. You have sealed your own death warrant. You shall be shot within an hour, and as for your father, he shall be taken to Gallipoli within the week, and if he survives the fire of your own warships, I shall find other means of dealing with him.'

He rushed out, slamming the door behind him.

'Got his monkey up pretty thoroughly,' said Roy with a laugh. Then seeing how grave Ken's face was.

'Don't worry, dear chap. You couldn't possibly have done anything else. And as for a bullet in the heart, what is it? It don't take long and it don't hurt, and we can always feel we've played the game.'

As he spoke he came closer and laid his shackled hands on Ken's shoulder.

'Thank you, Roy,' said Ken in a very low voice. 'You—you've helped me a lot. It—it's father I'm thinking of.'

'I know. But after all he isn't dead yet. And like as not this swab Henkel may get wiped out before he has the chance of doing him down.'

Silence fell between them. They sat with their backs against the wall, their hearts too full to talk. Ken's thoughts were with his father and his younger brother Anthony; Roy's were back in New Zealand, picturing the sunny plains and wild ranges around his home, the brawling rivers and the white sheep grazing on the great grass lands.

The last rays of the sun shone through the one small window of the hut, and presently came the tramp of men outside.

The corporal opened the door, the boys walked out, and guarded on either side were marched once more up the foul, narrow street to the higher ground above.

Beyond the house where their mock trial had taken place was a vineyard surrounded by a stone wall. Against this they were posted while the firing party was detailed.

Henkel, his bloodshot eyes aflame with ill-suppressed rage, stalked up to them.

'I give you a last chance,' he said harshly to Ken. 'I have told the others that you have certain information which I will take in exchange for your lives. Give me your word that you will write that letter, and all will be well.'

'You have had my answer,' said Ken quietly. 'Now go and watch us being murdered.'

Henkel bit his lip savagely.

'Your blood is on your own heads,' he said hoarsely. 'I have given you every chance.'

He stamped away, and as he did so took a handkerchief out of his pocket.

'When I drop this, fire,' he said curtly to the eight Turks who composed the firing party.

'Good-bye, old chap,' said Ken to Roy.

'Oh, I don't know,' Roy answered. 'After all, we're going together.'

Ken hardly heard. He was still tortured with the feeling that it was through him that Roy Horan and his father were to lose their lives. He knew he was right, and yet—'

A sound like a maxim gun in the distance smote upon his ears. It grew louder every instant. All, even Henkel, glanced upwards.

'Only an aeroplane, Ken,' said Roy in a whisper. 'By Jove, though, it's one of our chaps.'

Across the rich blue of the evening sky a great Farman biplane came sailing like a gigantic bird. She was barely five hundred feet up, and heading straight for the village. What was more, she was actually coming lower every moment.

Henkel, the other officer, the firing party, the bystanders—all stood with their eyes fixed upon the plane. The cool insolence of her pilot held them spellbound. For the moment Ken and Roy were absolutely forgotten.

Henkel was the first to recover himself.

'Shoot it down!' he bellowed. 'Shoot it down!' And the Turks, perhaps not altogether sorry to find some other use for their bullets than the slaughter of two helpless prisoners, raised their muzzles to the sky, and began blazing away furiously. Even Henkel, Hartmann, and Von Steegman hauled out their pistols from their belt holsters and fired for all they were worth.

But a plane travelling at a mile a minute is not the easiest thing in the world to hit, especially when it seems to be coming right at you. Possibly some of the bullets pierced the widespread wings, but no harm was done to the observer or his pilot.

Suddenly Ken seized Roy with his manacled hands.

'Down!' he cried sharply. 'Down!'

Roy understood and flung himself flat upon the ground, and Ken instantly followed his example.

Only just in time. Next second a black streak darted from the plane and shot earthwards. Followed an earth-shaking roar, and a blinding flash of flame.



Ken, flat on his face, felt the blast of it, and covered his head with his arms. Earth, small stones, debris of all kinds rained upon him, then followed silence, broken only by the rapidly diminishing roar of the engine exhaust.

Ken ventured to roll over. This is what he saw.

Between him and the spot where the firing party had stood, but nearer to the latter, was a great cavity in the ground, a hole ten feet across and perhaps a yard deep. Beyond, half buried in the mass of rubbish flung up by the explosion, were the broken remains of the firing party. All but one were dead, and most were blasted to fragments. The one survivor lay helpless and groaning.

Farther away the three officers were prone and still upon the ground, but whether dead or merely damaged, Ken could not tell. He hoped the former. Farther still, half a dozen other Turkish soldiers lay, twisted in ugly fashion, covered with blood. They had been badly cut by the jagged fragments of stone flung up by the bursting bomb. The survivors, a score or so in number, were running in blind panic towards the village.

'Roy, Roy! Quickly! We've a chance still,' cried Ken, his voice tense with excitement.

He sprang up as he spoke, and Roy staggered dazedly to his feet.

'This way!' said Ken, and in spite of the hampering handcuffs he managed to scramble over the low wall into the vineyard.

Roy followed.

'It's no use, Ken,' he said. 'We can't run with these beastly handcuffs, and they'll be after us in two twos.'

'Not they! Look!'

He pointed to the plane. It had circled wide over the town and was now coming back. The faint popping of rifles was followed by another terrific crash. A second bomb had dropped clean upon one of the larger houses, and exploding on the flat roof had scattered the whole building as a man's foot might scatter an ant's nest. With a roar half the house toppled outwards into the street, blocking it completely.

'Fine! Oh, fine!' cried Roy. 'That chap knows his business. Gee, but I wish we were alongside him.'

'Much use that would be! A plane can't carry four. But don't you see? He has spotted us. Those bombs are meant to give us our chance. It's up to us to take it. Hurry, Roy! If we can reach that wood yonder, we may be able to hide till dark.'

To run at all with tied hands is no easy matter. To make any sort of pace over rough ground, in such condition, is well-nigh impossible. Yet Ken and Roy, knowing absolutely that their lives depended on reaching that wood before their disappearance was realised, did manage to run and to run pretty fast.

Once more they heard the crashing explosion of a bomb, then suddenly the sound of the plane grew louder until the engine rattled almost overhead.

Ken stopped and looked up. The plane was passing no more than two hundred feet above them.

Over the edge of the fuselage a face appeared, a white dot framed in a khaki flying hood. An arm was thrust out, something dropped from it. There was a quick wave of a hand, then with the speed of a frightened wild duck, the plane shot away, came round in a finely banked curve, and disappeared in a south-easterly direction.

'Roy!' gasped Ken, breathless. 'Did you see that?'

'I saw him drop something—I saw it fall. There—there it is.'

Hurrying on for about fifty yards, he stooped swiftly and picked up something small but heavy.

'The daisy! Oh, the daisy!' panted Roy. 'I'll love that fellow to the end of my life.'

He held up the object which the airman had flung down. It was a hammer and a cold chisel tied together, with a leaf from a notebook under the string.

There was an ancient olive tree against the far wall of the vineyard. Cowering under its shelter, Roy tore the string off with his strong white teeth, then picked up the paper. These were the hurried words scrawled in pencil:— 'Sorry! All we can do for you. Make east. Your only chance.'

'East? That means the Straits. Why is that our only chance?' muttered Ken.

'Never mind that now,' Roy answered hastily. 'We must get our hands free. Confound it! We can't use the chisel. But here's a stone with a sharp edge. Try what you can do with the hammer, Ken.'

Ken took one quick glance in the direction of the village, but there was no one in sight. He caught hold of the hammer in both hands and brought it down with all his force on the link between Roy's handcuffs.

More by chance than skill the blow fell absolutely true, and the steel, either flawed or over-tempered, snapped.

Roy gave a cry of delight, and snatching the hammer from Ken took up the chisel and set to work on his bonds. His powerful hands made short work of the link, and within less than three minutes from the time the man in the plane had dropped the tools, they were both free.

With a deep sigh of relief, Roy sprang to his feet. 'We're our own men again, Ken. Come on.' He leaped lightly over the wall and raced away towards the trees. Ken followed.

They had no food, no weapons, they were miles from their own people, in the heart of the enemy country. Yet, for all that, there were not at that moment two lighter hearts in the whole of the Gallipoli Peninsula.



CHAPTER XII

ABOVE THE NARROWS

An intermittent thunder of guns had been growing heavier for the past hour. Now, as the two fugitives crouched on the eastern side of a steeply sloping hill, they were so near that they could distinctly see the flashes from the muzzles through the darkness of the night.

'That's either Fort Degetman or Kilid Bahr,' said Ken in a low voice. 'Ah, there are two. The right-hand one—the one to the south—is Kilid Bahr.'

"Then we're opposite the Narrows," Roy answered breathlessly.

"Just so," said Ken, but though he spoke quietly enough, he, too, felt a thrill. For five long hours they had been pushing east, or rather south-eastwards. They had crossed the main road leading to Great Maidos, they had had hairbreadth escapes sufficient to last most folk for a lifetime, and now at a little after one in the morning, they had crossed the whole peninsula, and were facing the famous Narrows, with their double cordon of forts on both sides of the Straits, the nut which for so many weeks all the Powers of the British and French combined had been engaged in trying to crack.



Opposite, a few scattered lights showed where lay the town of Chanak on the Asiatic side of the Narrows. From forts along that coast also, there now and then darted a spit of flame, while half a minute or so later the dull roar of the report would reverberate through the night.

"We've gone east," said Roy slowly. "We've done what that chap in the plane told us to do. But I'm hanged if I can see how we're to go any farther."

'Unless,' he added thoughtfully, 'we are going to swim for it.'

'A bit far for that,' said Ken. 'We are just thirteen miles from the mouth of the Straits, and though they say the current runs down at four miles an hour, I don't think either of us could stand three hours in the water.'

'Not me!' replied Roy with a shiver. 'Too jolly cold!'

'We must get hold of a boat,' said Ken with decision. 'That's our only chance.'

'Lead on, sonny,' said Roy—'that is, if you know where to find one.'

'I haven't much more notion than you, Roy. But there's just this in our favour—that I know there's a little cove south of Kilid Bahr. And as all the coast on either side is cliffs, the chances are that boats, if there are any, will be lying in that cove.'

'So will half the Turkish Army, most probably,' said Roy recklessly. 'Not that I care. The only thing I mind is handcuffs. I'm going to slay the first chap who suggests them.'

Ken was not listening. He was staring out towards the Straits, trying to get the lie of the land. The coast itself he knew well, for he had been up and down the Dardanelles a number of times. But of the land he was ignorant, and it is no joke to find one's way by night over such a country as the Gallipoli Peninsula.

'Come on, then,' he said presently, and turned due south down the hill-side.

Not a yard of their journey had been without its risks, but now they had to be more careful than ever. The whole shore of the Straits was, they knew, a network of forts and hidden defences. There was no saying when they might blunder upon something of the kind.

Half-way down the hill, Ken, who was leading, pulled up.

'Look out!' he muttered. 'There's a pit of some sort just in front of us. Wait, I'll see what it is.'

He dropped on hands and knees and crawled forward. He was away for only a few moments.

'Nothing but a shell hole,' he explained, 'but it's a regular crater. Must have been done by one of our twelve-inch guns. Two dead Turks alongside it.'

'Rum place for a shell to fall,' Roy answered, straining his eyes through the gloom.

'It means there's a fort somewhere near,' said Ken. 'Our people don't waste shells on empty hill-sides, I can tell you.'

'Wish it wasn't so infernally dark,' growled Roy.

'I'm jolly glad it is,' answered Ken emphatically. 'Put it any way you like, it helps us more than the enemy.'

They saw nothing of the fort, if there was one, and after crossing some very broken ground came down into a narrow valley, in the centre of which was the bed of a water-course, now dry.

'That's better,' whispered Ken, as he dropped down into it. 'This ought to bring us out on the beach.'

The bottom was sun-baked mud and dry stones which, together, formed about as unpleasant a combination for walking over as could well be imagined, especially since it was absolutely necessary to move without a sound. Both were deeply grateful when at last the torrent bed widened, and they heard the lap of ripples on a beach.

'I feel like those old Greek Johnnies,' said Roy, 'the ones who'd been wandering for a year over there in Asia, and who chucked their helmets into the air and yelled when they saw the sea.'

'Well, don't try any tricks of that sort here, old man,' Ken answered dryly. 'Wait a jiffy. I'm going forward to get a squint at the beach.'

He crept away, bent double, and was gone for so long that Roy began to get uneasy. But at last he saw Ken stealing back.

'What luck?' he whispered.

'None,' Ken answered in a tone of bitter disappointment.

'What—no boats?'

'Plenty of boats, but there are men behind them. I don't know how many, but quite a lot. I don't even know whether they are troops. They are sitting about on the shingle, talking and smoking. Anyhow there are too many for us to tackle.'

Roy grunted. 'That's bad. But, see here, Ken, we've got to have a boat some way or other.'

'We're going to,' said Ken fiercely, 'but I'm afraid it means crawling all the way back up that beastly water-course.'

'Up the water-course?' repeated Roy. 'Great Ghost, there are no boats up there.'

'It's not boats I'm after in the first place, it's a disguise. See here. You know I told you there were two dead Turks alongside that shell hole. My notion is to take their uniforms or just their overcoats, and then walk boldly down to the beach, and tell the chaps there that we have a despatch to take across to Ghanak.'

'Put up a bluff,' Roy answered. 'I see. But surely they have a cable across.'

'They had, but the "Sapphire" cut it. And since it's gone, why I should fancy the only way of getting messages across is by boat.'

'But what about the password?' suggested Roy.

'We'll have to chance that. There are not likely to be any officers about on the beach at night. It isn't as if there was any danger of attack here. They are right under the forts of the Narrows.'

'Well,' said Roy, rising with a sigh, 'it sounds a pretty good scheme. But I'd give more than sixpence to get out of crawling back up that abominable gully.

'I'm afraid there's no help for it,' replied Ken, as he started.

Both were tired with their long tramp across country, and they were sadly in need of food and rest. It was wretchedly disappointing, after they had at last made the sea, to have to turn back again inland. They were a very silent pair as they toiled back over the cracked clay and loose stones.

There was worse to come. In the darkness they missed the exact spot where they had first entered the gully, and when they reached the hill-side found that they were lost. Neither of them had the least idea of the whereabouts of the shell hole with the bodies of the two dead Turks.



A good half-hour they wasted in vain search, then Ken dropped behind the shelter of a small bush.

'It's no use, Roy,' he said desperately. 'I can't find it. We're simply wasting time.'

Instead of answering, Roy took hold of Ken's arm with a grip that was like that of a steel vice.

'Hush!' he whispered, and pointed.

Two figures had risen in front, apparently out of the very depths of the earth. They were not more than twenty paces away.

The boys crouched, breathless. A moment later, two other figures loomed through the darkness, coming down the slope. They came straight up to the first two.

'By Eblis, but thou hast not hurried thyself Ali!' said one of the latter, speaking in Turkish. 'Hassan and I were about to come and seek thee.'

One of the others gave a laugh.

'I am sorry, brother. We slept and no one awaked us. Is all well?'

'All is well. What else should it be? Who but a dog of an unbelieving German would waste men's time in guarding such a place as this?'

'Of a truth it is foolishness,' said the man named Ali. 'The British are far enough away, Allah knows.'

'A good watch to thee,' said Hassan in rather a surly tone. Then he and his companion tramped away uphill, and Ali and the other sank down into what was evidently a trench.

Hastily Ken translated what he had heard for Roy.

'They are sentries,' he said, 'and I suppose there is some underground work here which they have been set to guard.'

'And by the looks of it, they are the only men there,' Roy replied eagerly. 'Ken, I think I see those coats materialising.'

'It might be done,' said Ken. 'As you say, they are probably the only men in the place, whatever it is. And clearly they take their job pretty easily. If we can catch them napping we ought to be able to polish them off.'

'We will catch them napping, and we will polish them off,' Roy said grimly. 'Mind you, Ken, they mustn't shoot.'

He began to creep forward on hands and knees. Ken kept abreast. A minute later, they found themselves at the sloping entrance of what was evidently a communication trench.

'We'd best keep on top,' whispered Roy. 'You go one side, I'll take the other. When we get above them, we must both drop together. Jump right on them, and put 'em out before they know what's up.'

There was no doubt about this being the best plan, and they started at once. Roy went off with his usual confidence, but Ken, more highly strung, felt his heart thumping as he crawled along the rough edge of the deep, dark ditch.

It seemed to him that they went a very long way before he saw Roy stop and lift one hand. He himself peered over cautiously. The stars gave just enough light to see the two Turkish sentries.

They were leaning carelessly against the wall of the trench. One was smoking, the other apparently rolling a cigarette. They were chatting in low voices, and so far as Ken could make out, neither held his rifle.

Roy pointed to the one nearest Ken. Ken nodded, and rose very quietly to his feet.

The Turk firmly believes that certain places, bare hill-sides especially, are haunted by unpleasant bogies which he calls Djinns and Afrits. If ever any Turk was fully convinced that a Djinn had him, it must have been the sentry that Ken jumped on.

He landed absolutely straight on the man's shoulders, and down he went flat on his face, with Ken on top of him. His forehead struck the opposite wall of the trench, and though Ken wasted no time at all in getting hold of his throat, this was quite unnecessary. The wretched Turk was limp as a wet dish-rag and quite insensible.

'Good business, Ken!' said Roy, and glancing round Ken saw his chum kneeling on the chest of the second man, one big hand compressing his wind-pipe. 'Good business! We've got them both, and no fuss about it. Confound it! These fellows don't run to handkerchiefs. Wait a jiffy. I must get his belt off.'

Neither of the Turks was in condition to put up any resistance, and in a very few moments they were stripped of overcoats, shakos, and haversacks. They were then tied and carefully gagged.

Roy pulled on the overcoat of the bigger man.

'I've seen better fits,' he remarked. 'But it will do in this light. Now for that boat.'

'One minute!' said Ken, 'let's just see what they were guarding.'

He slipped along the trench, Roy after him, and a few yards farther on it sloped downwards, then widened into a deepish semicircular excavation. In the middle of this was a great lump of something which, as they came nearer, resolved itself into a gun of some sort. It was very thick, very short, it stood on a concrete platform, and its squat muzzle pointed almost straight up into the air.

'It's a howitzer,' said Ken.

'Rummiest looking howitzer I ever saw,' Roy answered. 'Looks as if it came out of the Ark.'

'Came out of the Crimea, I expect. They used this kind of thing sixty years ago. It's a muzzle loader, you see.'

'And shoots real cannon balls,' said Roy, pointing to a pyramid of huge iron globes, each about fourteen inches in diameter.

'I wonder where the powder is,' said Ken with sudden eagerness.

'What's up now?' demanded Roy.

'I've got it,' said Ken quickly, as he began pulling a tarpaulin off a pile of canvas bags. 'A rare lot of it too!'

'You're not thinking by any chance of lobbing shot into Maidos, are you?' asked Roy sarcastically.

'Not that,' said Ken. 'Hardly that. But what about setting off this little lot? My notion is this. If we could put a slow match to the powder and then clear out and get down to the mouth of the water-course before it goes off, I believe those loafers down on the beach would all come running up here to see what had happened. That would give us our chance to collar a boat and clear.'

Roy gave a low chuckle.

'Not a bad notion, old son. Not half a bad idea. Yes, it certainly would wake some of 'em up. But what about the slow match? We've got no fuse.'

Ken held out an old-fashioned candle lantern.

'I bagged this from the sentry. There's just half an inch of candle in it. We've nothing to do but lay a train of loose powder up to it.'

Roy chuckled again.

'You're a bad 'un to beat, Ken. Yes, that ought to work. Let's get at it.'

The powder was just as old-fashioned as the rest of the outfit. Common black stuff, large grained, coarser even than blasting powder. Once they got a bag open it did not take them long to lay the train to the lantern, which Ken placed in a little excavation kicked out right under the front wall of the earthwork.

'Don't think any one will see it there,' he said, as he cut the candle down a trifle and lit it cautiously with a sputtering sulphur match, part of the spoil from the Turkish sentry.

'I suppose those sentries are far enough off to be all right,' he added, as he rose hastily to his feet.

'Bless you, yes. This stuff isn't like high explosive. It'll only go up with a bang and a fizz like a big firework. Skip. We've got to be at the beach by the time she goes off.'

They knew their way by now, and in spite of the darkness, wasted very little time in reaching the ravine. All was very quiet. The Turkish guns, which had been firing probably at some mine-sweeper, were silent again. The only sounds of war were an occasional boom far to the south where the British and French faced the Turks entrenched on the heights of Achi Baba.

Bent double, the two scurried across the waste of cracked clay and loose stones, and in less than half the time they had taken for their first journey, reached the point where it debouched upon the open beach.

Ken dropped, panting slightly, and Roy slipping down beside him, caught a glint of dark water rippling under the starlight.

From somewhere to the left came a murmur of voices, and the breeze brought to his nostrils a faint odour of tobacco smoke.

Seconds dragged like minutes as they lay waiting. The suspense was very hard to bear.

Roy put his mouth close to Ken's ear.

'Afraid your contraption's gone wrong, old son. Don't seem to hear that bust up you promised.'

'Unless the powder was damp—' began Ken. His sentence was cut short by a thunderous boom. The earth quivered beneath them, and sky, sea, even the tall cliffs opposite flared crimson.

The great glow passed as swiftly as it had come, there followed a rattle of falling rubbish, then silence dropped. Silence, however, which lasted no longer than the flash. Almost instantly burst out a hubbub of excited voices, there was a rattle of sandalled feet on shingle and a sound of men running hard.