’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.