rt.'

'Gentlemen,' he said, addressing the anxious crowd who surrounded him, 'my
son has suggested that we might do something better than go and lie up for
an indefinite time in the hiding-place which would be our only possible
refuge on these shores, and where we should be in constant danger from the
enemy. His idea is that we might make a dash back down the Straits.'

'Mais, it would be ze madness!' exclaimed an elderly Frenchman, with a
gray imperial and a blood-stained bandage around his head. 'Zey would sink
us.'

'So they would under ordinary circumstances,' agreed the captain. 'But the
night and--more than that--the fog are in our favour. Besides this launch
is Turkish, and we have several people aboard who can speak the language.'

'But ze mines!' objected the Frenchman.

'There again we are fairly safe. The launch is of such shallow draught
that she will easily pass over the mine-fields. Floating mines we must of
course risk, but there are not likely to be many about, for the Turks only
send them down when an attack is expected. One other point is in our
favour. This launch is fast. With any luck, we shall be through the
Straits and in safety long before daylight.'

The Frenchman nodded.

'Vair well, Monsieur le Capitaine. For me, I am satisfied.'

'I think we all are,' said an elderly Englishman named Symons.

The captain looked round, but no one offered any objection.

'Then it is decided,' he said quietly, and proceeded to issue his orders
as briskly as he had done, years before, on his own quarter-deck.

The Turks were transferred to the empty boat, and taken in tow by the
submarine. Johnston went back to G2, but Williams remained as engineer in
charge of the launch. The dead Turks were put overboard, and the traces of
the fight quickly removed.

Then Strang bade them farewell and good luck, the engines began to move,
the screw churned the water, and the prize, heading westwards, sped
rapidly towards the mouth of the Straits.

Williams, who was the sort of man who could tackle anything in the way of
machinery, from a sewing machine to a Dreadnought's turbines, soon got the
hang of the launch's engines.

'They're a bit of all right,' he said to Ken and Roy, who had volunteered
as stokers and oilers. 'Blowed if I thought them Turks had anything as
good. But I reckon this here craft come from Germany.'

'She certainly can leg it,' observed Ken, as he noticed how the whole
fabric of the little