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.

[Illustration:  Tins and barbed wire are cut up in the Dardanelles as ‘filling’ for bombs.]

[Illustration:  Our gallant bluejackets cheered the return of the triumphant submarine after her wonderful achievement.]

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.