ld succeed in this manoeuvre, he felt the ground crumbling
beneath his feet.

It was too late to do anything to save himself. Next moment the earth gave
way and he and the German, locked in one another's arms, went flying
through the air.

Followed a crash and a thud, and for some moments Ken lay stunned and
breathless, though not actually insensible.

In boxing there is nothing more painful than a blow on the 'mark.' It
knocks all the breath out of the body, and for some time the lungs seem
paralysed. This was practically what had happened to Ken. He had fallen
full on his chest, and though his senses remained clear enough, he simply
could not get his breath back.

When at last he succeeded in doing so he felt as weak as a cat, and deadly
sick into the bargain. It was some moments before he could even manage to
roll off the body of the man beneath him.

He struggled to his feet and found that he was at the bottom of a bluff
about twenty feet high. To the right was a sheer drop to the sea. He
shivered as he glanced over to the fog-shrouded waves, full eighty feet
below. The ledge on which he had landed was only four or five yards wide.
A very little more, and he and his enemy together must have gone clean
over the cliff.

He turned to the German. The latter lay still enough--so still that at
first Ken thought he was dead. But presently he saw that the man was still
breathing.

'A hospital case,' muttered Ken in puzzled tones. 'What the mischief am I
to do with him?'

'Ken--Ken, where are you?'

The anxious question came from overhead, and glancing up Ken saw Dave
Burney's head appearing over the edge of the bluff.

'I'm all right,' he answered. 'What about you?'

'We've nobbled our little lot,' Dave answered with justifiable pride. 'My
word, but I'm glad to see you. I thought you'd gone right over into the
sea.'

'I wasn't far off it,' said Ken. 'I say, is there any way up to the top
again. This is nothing but a ledge?'

'Can't you climb the bluff. It's not so steep a little way to your right?'

'I could, but my German friend isn't exactly in climbing trim. He's rather
badly bust up by the look of him.'

Dave glanced round.

[Illustration: '"My German friend isn't exactly in climbing trim."']

'It looks to me as if the ledge you're on broadens a good bit to my left.
You wait where you are, and Roy and I will come round and give you a
hand.'

Dave's head disappeared, and Ken sat down, with his bac