‘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.’