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.

Roy sprang to his feet, but Ken caught him by the arm.

'Steady! Don't hurry, or you'll give the show away. It's not likely they're all gone.'

'Every man Jack of 'em,' Roy answered, as he walked boldly out on to the beach.

Ken glanced round sharply. It seemed as though Roy were right. So far as he could see, the whole population of the beach had departed for the scene of the explosion.

'There are the boats,' said Roy. 'Three, four—yes, half a dozen of them. Now we shan't be long.' 'They're great clumsy brutes of things,' Ken answered. Hang it all! There isn't one we can manage between us.'

'Wait. There's a smaller one beyond. That might do us.' muttered Roy, hurrying forward.

Ken followed quickly. As Roy had said, this boat which lay by itself was decidedly smaller than the others. It had, however, been pulled clear of the water.

'Good, she's got a pair of oars,' said Roy. 'Give us a hand to launch her, Ken.'

She was a considerable weight, and the shingle was deep and soft. There is no tide in these waters, so the beaches are dry like those of a lake. In spite of their best efforts, it took them some little time to get her afloat.

They had only just succeeded and Ken was scrambling aboard, when rapid steps came hurrying down the beach.

'Halt!' came a sharp voice speaking in Turkish. 'Who goes there?'

CHAPTER XIII
THE SWEEPERS

'Hurry!' hissed Roy.

'No use,' was the low-voiced answer. 'He'd get us both before we were out of range.' As he spoke, Ken turned and stepped swiftly back to the beach.

'Friend,' he answered, speaking in the same language. 'Despatches for Chanak from Colonel Gratz.'

The sentry, a burly Turk, armed with a Mauser rifle, pulled up opposite Ken.

'Despatches,' he repeated suspiciously. 'Why are they being sent by boat? And who gave you leave to use this boat?'

In a flash Roy saw that this was a man of more intelligence than the average run of Turkish soldiers, and that it would be useless to try and bluff him. The only chance was to put him out.

'We had our orders,' he said. 'You can look at them if you wish.' He pretended to take something out of his pocket, at the same time stepping forward. Then, like a flash, he drove his fist with all his might into the Turk's face.

The man reeled backwards, but did not fall. Next moment he uttered a shout that rang through the night.

'We've done it now,' growled Roy, as he leaped past Ken, and caught the wretched sentry by the throat with a grip that effectually prevented any further sound.

'Take his rifle, Ken,' he said sharply. 'It's all right. I'll gag him. You get into the boat.'

How he did it Ken did not know, but within an incredibly short time Roy had sprung into the water, pushed the boat off, and scrambled aboard.

'I'll take the oars,' he said unceremoniously, and Ken, though himself a useful man with sculls, made no objection. Roy's strength, he knew, was greater than his own.

In a trice Roy had flung off his Turkish overcoat and British tunic. The blades bent as he sent the boat hissing through the water.

There was no tiller, but Ken found a broken scull at the bottom of the boat with which he contrived to steer. He kept her head due south, but fairly close in shore, and what between Roy's powerful efforts, and the strong current which always flows out of the Sea of Marmora into the Aegean, they were soon going almost as fast as a man could run.

'It'll be Heaven's own luck if no one heard that yell,' muttered Roy, as he bent all his giant strength to the oars.

'I wish it had been your fist and not mine,' Ken replied with some bitterness.

'But I couldn't have got near him,' Roy answered simply. 'You see, I don't speak the lingo.'

The vicious crack of a rifle interrupted the conversation, and a bullet slapped the water just astern, and went skipping away in a series of ducks and drakes.

'They're on to us,' muttered Ken between set teeth. Roy said nothing. He only pulled a little harder. By the way the oars bent, Ken almost feared they would snap.

Another spit of white flame from the beach, another, and another. Still they were unhit, and every moment the distance was increasing. They had got beyond the low beach, and were under the cliffs to the southward.

'We may do it yet,' muttered Ken. 'They can't see us in this light. And there are not more than two chaps firing.'

There was a moment's pause in the firing. Ken's spirits rose. He thought—hoped that the Turks had given it up as a bad job. Then, just as it seemed as though they were really out of range, there rang out a regular volley, and all around them the water splashed in little jets of pale foam. There came a thud, the boat quivered slightly, and white splinters flew near Ken's feet, one cutting him slightly on the shin.

'Hit?' panted Roy, as he saw Ken wince.

'Nothing. It's the boat,' answered Ken briefly, as he bent to examine the damage.

A few seconds later, and they had rounded the projecting point of rock on which stands the old lighthouse. The firing ceased.

Roy slackened a little.

'Much damage?' he asked curtly.

'Holed her badly,' Ken answered. 'She's leaking like a sieve.'

'Rotten luck!' growled Roy. 'And just as we'd dodged the blighters. Can you do anything with it?'

'Ram a handkerchief in—that's all. Of course, I can bale.'

'Well, keep her afloat as long as you can. It won't be exactly healthy if we have to land anywhere here. All forts, isn't it?'

'Yes, down as far as Tekeh. Not that the forts will do us any harm, even if they're warned. We're too small and too close in for gun fire. But there's no place to land for nearly two miles—not until you get to what they call the Fountain.'

Apparently the forts were not warned. As the 'Triumph' had been slamming 12-inch shells into them only the previous night, the chances were that the telephone wires were cut. Roy kept going with long steady strokes, while Ken, working even harder, baled frantically the whole time.

So they drove on without speaking for about a quarter of an hour.

At last Ken straightened his aching back. 'It's no use, Roy. The water's gaining. I can't keep it down.'

'You needn't tell me that. I've been over my ankles the last five minutes, and she's pulling like a sunk log.'

'What are we going to do?' said Ken—'Try for the Fountain landing?'

'Might as well, I suppose. Any chance of picking up another boat, d'ye think?'

'Pretty slim, I fancy,' answered Ken. 'There are sure to be sentries there. You see, it's the sort of place where our people might attempt a landing.'

'Could we try for the other side?' suggested Roy.

'Out of the question,' said Ken. 'We're opposite Sari Siglar Bay. The Straits are nearly three miles wide here.'

Roy gave a short laugh. 'Looks as if we should have to swim for it after all,' he said. 'Well, the only thing is to keep going until she sinks under us. Then we must scramble ashore and take our chances.'

He pulled on again, and Ken betook himself to his everlasting task of baling. He was mortally tired and desperately sleepy. His eyes almost closed as he dipped and dipped in the salt water which, in spite of all his efforts, grew steadily deeper in the bottom of the boat. The lower she sank, the more quickly the water spurted in. Each minute that passed brought the inevitable end closer.

Once he glanced up to see, if possible, where they were. To the right tall black cliffs towered against the night sky, to the left the stars twinkled in the ripples of the deep and wide Straits.

Roy pulled like a machine, but the weight of water made his efforts almost useless. The boat sogged slowly forward like a dead thing.

'She won't last another five minutes,' said Ken.

'And there's no landing place, old chap. We're right up against it.'

'Tell you what there is, though,' said Ken keenly. 'There's a craft of some sort out there. Don't you hear her engines?'

Roy stopped pulling a moment. In the silence a faint chug, chug reached their ears.

'What do you think she is—one of our warships?' he asked in a whisper.

'Haven't a notion. But she's probably British or French. The Turks haven't got much in the way of craft—at least not this side of Gallipoli.'

'Then I vote for trying to make her,' said Roy. 'Right you are,' Ken answered, and began baling harder than ever Roy, pulling on his left-hand oar, got the boat round, and made a last spurt in the direction of the sound.

It seemed a very forlorn hope. They could not even see the craft—whatever she was—and their boat manifestly had but a short time to live. If she sank out in mid-straits there was no earthly chance of reaching the shore. Drowning was certain.

Three minutes passed. The water in the boat was nearly knee deep. Pull as he might, Roy could hardly keep her moving. Ken raised his head and peered out through the gloom.

'I see her,' he said with sudden eagerness. He pointed as he spoke to a dim shape not more than a couple of hundred yards away.

Roy glanced back over his shoulder. 'She's very small,' he said, 'and she's working upstream. Hallo, there's another just beyond her—a pair of 'em.'

'Two, are there? Then I tell you what they are—trawlers.'

'Trawlers!' echoed Roy. 'What—catching herrings for the Admiral's breakfast?'

'No, you ass—mines. They're mine-sweepers of course.' Roy gave a low whistle.

'I'd sooner catch herrings,' he said. 'But never mind. So long as they're British, that's all that matters.' And he set to pulling again with all the energy left him.

The trawlers were creeping along at very slow speed, and without a light of any sort showing. There was not even the usual glow from the funnel top. Lucky it was for Roy and Ken that they were going so slowly, for they were still some little distance from the nearest trawler when the ripples began to wash over the gunwale of the water-logged boat.

'Help!' shouted Roy hoarsely. 'Help!'

'Pull on!' said Ken, as he still baled frantically. 'Pull on! They can't come round if they've got their sweeping cable out.'

Roy made a last effort, and whether it was Roy's shout or the sound of the oars, some one aboard the trawler heard them.

'Who are you?' came a gruff voice, half-muffled, as though afraid of being overheard on shore.

'Friends—British,' answered Ken. 'Our boat's sinking.'

There came a sharp order echoed from the farther ship. The trawlers both slackened speed.

'Come alongside, if you can. We can't pull out to you,' called the same voice that Ken had heard previously.

A few more strokes, then just as the boat was actually sinking under them, a rope came whizzing across. Roy caught it and a moment later, wet and draggled, they were standing on the deck of the trawler.

'Well, I'll be everlastingly jiggered,' exclaimed a gruff voice. 'Where in all that's wonderful did you fellers spring from?' The speaker was a short, square man, but it was so dark that all they could see of his face was that it was round and clean-shaven.

'Out of the Dardanelles last, and before that from Kilid Bahr,' Ken answered. 'We're escaped prisoners.'

'Gosh, you've been in warm places, young fellers,' said the other, 'but I kind o' think it's a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.'

'Fire's better than water, specially when it's as cold as the Straits,' said Roy with a shiver.

'Well, maybe that's so,' replied the other. 'Get you gone below, the both o' you. You'll find a fire in the galley and the cook'll give ye some hot cocoa.'

'Thanks awfully,' said Ken and Roy in one breath, and hurried off at once.

The cook, a lean, solemn-faced man named Lemuel Gill, showed no surprise whatever at the sudden apparition of two half-drowned strangers. But if he asked no questions he was not stingy with the cocoa, and Roy and Ken put away a quart of it between them, and openly declared they had never tasted anything so good in all their lives.

Their praise seemed to please Gill, for he proceeded to cut some gigantic sandwiches out of stale bread and excellent cold boiled pork, and to these also the hungry youngsters did justice.

'What ship is this?' asked Ken, when the first pangs of hunger had been satisfied.

'"Maid o' Sker." Mine—sweeper. Skipper, Seth Grimball,' was the brief answer. Then, after a pause, 'Where did you blokes come from?'

Ken told him, or rather began to, for before he had finished, the steady beat of the engines suddenly slackened.

'Cotched one, I reckon,' remarked Gill briefly, and hurried on deck followed by the two boys.

The 'Maid of Sker' was the ordinary type of North Sea trawler, and so far as Ken and Roy could see, her fellow, whose name Gill told them was the 'Swan of Avon,' was her double. They were moving exactly parallel, at a distance of about a cable (220 yards) apart. Between them towed a thin steel hawser set to a depth just sufficient to catch the mooring cables of the mines which were plentifully strewn in the channel.

'Caught one, you say?' whispered Ken in Gill's ear. 'A mine, you mean?'

'Ay. Look at the cable. She's foul of it all right.'

Certainly the cable was sagging in a curious fashion.

'What do you do with them?' asked Roy.

But Gill had already run aft to assist. Low-voiced orders were heard, and the 'Maid of Sker' began to forge slowly ahead.

'I think they're going to tow it out of the channel,' Ken said to Roy. 'That's what I believe they do.'

'But I thought the beastly things exploded when you touched 'em,' said Roy.

'Some do. That's the sort with steel whiskers on them. The others are what they call tilting mines. They blow up when their balance is upset.'

'And which is this?'

'I don't know any more than you, and I don't suppose the skipper does, either. All these mines swim some way under the surface.'

'What's the betting on her going off?' said the irrepressible Roy.

'She won't,' said Ken confidently. 'These chaps know how to handle her. She—'

He stopped short, and involuntarily flung up his hands before his eyes. A cone of blinding white light had sprouted suddenly from the Asiatic shore, and in its cold brilliance the outlines of the two trawlers, the people on their decks, the cable towing between them, and a wide patch of rippling water stood out as clearly as in the broadest daylight. It was a searchlight from Kephez Point at the southern angle of Sari Siglar Bay.

'Haul up there. Haul on that cable. Sharp now!' bellowed Captain Grimball, and his men sprang to obey. He himself dashed into the little deckhouse and was out again in an instant with a rifle in his hand.

In the dazzling glare a great bulbous mass of dark-coloured metal heaved slowly up out of the water midway between the two trawlers. It was hardly in sight before Grimball had flung his rifle to his shoulder and fired.

Followed instantly an explosion so terrific that Ken distinctly felt the deck of the trawler lift under his feet. A cloud of thick black smoke shot high into the air, and as it rose a very waterspout descended upon the little ship.

Roy and Ken staggered back, half deafened by the appalling concussion.

'Got that one, anyway,' they heard Grimball exclaim, as he dashed back to the bridge and rang the engine bell for full steam. 'Got him all right. Next question is whether the blighters will get us.'

Both trawlers seemed actuated by the same impulse. Both at the same time surged ahead, while the sweeping cable was either cut or cast loose.

But the searchlight's brilliant beam followed relentlessly, and as the two smart little craft cleared from the area of the black smoke cloud, there came the ringing report of a 6-inch gun followed by the familiar whirr of a heavy shell.

'Rotten shot!' snapped Grimball, as the shell, sailing well over the mast top, plunged into the sea two hundred yards or more beyond.

'Hard aport!' he shouted, and the 'Maid' came spinning round almost as smartly as a sailing dinghy. Next minute she and her consort were legging it southwards at the very top of their speed.

For a moment they were clear of the dazzling radiance of the searchlight, but only for a moment. Then the long pencil of glaring whiteness found them again, and now the guns began to bark in earnest.

The 'Maid' seemed to know her peril. She squattered down into the water, and the foaming wake lengthened, trailing far behind her. Forgetful of their own danger, Roy and Ken watched breathless while the trawlers ran the gauntlet of the forts.

A shell struck the water right under the bows of the 'Maid,' flinging up a fountain which rose as high as the mainmast, and deluging the decks for a second time.

'Mighty wet job this,' said Roy, shaking himself like a great dog. 'Rotten luck we can't shoot back, eh, Ken?'

'Can't even do much running,' said Ken. 'Twelve knots is about our top speed. 'Pon my soul, these chaps have got pluck.'

'The "Swan's" drawing ahead,' said Roy.

Almost as the words left his lips there came a shattering crash and a sheet of flame leapt up from the other trawler. A shell had pitched full upon her armoured wheel-house, and exploding had not only blown it away, with the steersman, but opened up the whole deck. The poor little trawler, with her steering gear smashed, swung round to starboard, and it was only by the smartest seamanship that the 'Maid' avoided running her down.

'She's done,' said Roy, as he ran forward. 'She's sinking!'

He was right. The big shell had knocked her all to pieces. Grimball saw this too, and in response to his rapid order, the 'Maid's' engines stopped, and four stalwart fellows ran to the dinghy which lay in chocks on her deck.

In a trice they had flung her over the low rail into the sea; two sprang in and pulled hard for the rapidly sinking 'Swan.'

All the time the guns ashore were rapping and roaring. The sea was thick with spouts of foam as shells big and little struck the surface.

'This infernal searchlight!' growled Roy. 'They're rotten shots, but they're getting the range now.'

They were. Just as the dinghy drew alongside the 'Swan,' another 6-inch plunged straight into her, amidships. It must have exploded in the engine-room. The 'Swan' and all in her vanished from the face of the waters, and when the smoke cloud lifted, the dinghy, upside down, with one man clinging to it, was all that was left.

'A rope. Give us a rope!' shouted Roy. Some one ran forward, but even as they did so a smaller shell caught the funnel of the 'Maid' and carried two thirds of it away. With it went the man with the rope.

At the same moment the survivor who was clinging to the dinghy let go his hold. Stunned by the concussion of the previous shell, he was sinking into the depths.

'I can't stand that,' cried Roy, and with one spring was overboard and striking out hard for the drowning man.

The racket and roar were appalling. Some field batteries behind Kephez had joined in, and the whole night echoed with the quick crashes of the guns, while the air was full of the train-like rattle of flying shells.

But in all the confusion Ken kept his head. Catching sight of a coil of line on the deck close by the forward hatch, he sprang for it, made one end fast to a bollard, and with a shout flung the other towards Roy.

It fell short, but Roy saw it and with a great effort reached it.

'Hang on!' roared Ken at the top of his voice. 'I'll pull you in.'