e crackling strength of his
mighty sinews, hurled the grenade.

It fell into the exact centre of the flooded shell-crater.

Angus said something under his breath which would have shocked a
disciple of Kultur. Fortunately the two German gunners did not hear
him. But they observed the splash fifty yards away, and it relieved
them from _ennui_, for they were growing tired of firing at nothing.
They had not seen the grenade thrown, and were a little puzzled as to
the cause of the phenomenon.

Four seconds later their curiosity was more than satisfied. With a
muffled roar, the shell-hole suddenly, spouted its liquid contents and
other _debris_ straight to the heavens, startling them considerably
and entirely obscuring their vision.

A moment later, with an exultant yell, Angus M'Lachlan was upon them.
He sprang into their vision out of the descending cascade--a towering,
terrible, kilted figure, bare-headed and Berserk mad. He was barely
forty yards away.

Initiative is not the _forte_ of the Teuton. Number One of the German
gun mechanically traversed his weapon four degrees to the right and
continued to press the thumb-piece. Mud and splinters of brick sprang
up round Angus's feet; but still he came on. He was not twenty yards
away now. The gunner, beginning to boggle between waiting and bolting,
fumbled at his elevating gear, but Angus was right on him before
his thumbs got back to work. Then indeed the gun spoke out with no
uncertain voice, for perhaps two seconds. After that it ceased fire
altogether.

Almost simultaneously there came a triumphant roar lower down the
street, as Mucklewame and his followers dashed obliquely across into
the _estaminet_. Mucklewame himself was carrying the derelict Lewis
gun. In the doorway stood the watchful M'Snape.

"This way, quick!" he shouted. "We have the Gairman gun spotted, and
the officer is needing the Lewis!"

But M'Snape was wrong. The Lewis was not required.

A few moments later, in the face of brisk sniping from the houses
higher up the street, James Bogle, officer's servant,--a member of
that despised class which, according to the _Bandar-log_ at home,
spend the whole of its time pressing its master's trousers and smoking
his cigarettes somewhere back in billets,--led out a stretcher party
to the German gun. Number One had been killed by a shot from Angus's
revolver. Number Two had adopted Hindenburg tactics, and was no more
to be seen. Angus himself was lying,