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?'