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.'