Step by step they fell back, towards the men who, as yet unaware of the new weapon in use against their left, were still holding the defences with grim valour. The Turkish bombers advanced slowly, respecting the rifles which so steadily sped their bullets through the increasing volume of smoke. And now Burnet saw that another party of the enemy, passing the end of the breastwork, was striking up across the island. At this moment a shell burst a few yards away; he was struck below the knee, and sank to the ground. Jackson, smothered with earth, rushed to his side. "Carry on!" gasped Burnet. "We won't give in till the last gasp." Jackson turned about, and fired again into the advancing bombers. The field-guns ceased to play; only rifle fire and bomb explosions could be heard. Then, after a minute or two, came reports of guns again, but no shells fell. The blare of bugles was heard, and a few seconds afterwards Jackson, still facing the enemy, shouted: "By Jupiter, they're bolting, sir." It was true. The men who had penetrated the island were running back. At the breastwork the Turks had suddenly dropped away, and were now streaming along the causeway, scrambling on board the kelaks, plunging into the water, in desperate anxiety to save themselves from the new danger that threatened them. The ever-increasing boom of guns away to the west told them clearly enough what that danger was; and Jackson, running a little way up the rising ground behind the scene of the long struggle, soon declared that he saw the glint of sunlight on lances above the patches of vegetation. Rejeb's Arabs, weary though they were, sprang over the breastwork and the embankment and dashed along the causeway in pursuit of their retreating foe. Many of them suffered from their own temerity, for the Turk in defeat is still a dangerous man, and some of the fugitives halted and turned upon their pursuers with grim ferocity. Some hours later, Burnet, lying on a couch in Rejeb's tower, was embarrassed by the congratulations of the colonel commanding the relieving force. "Thanks to you," said that officer, "we've made a bag of some five or six hundred Turks who are now on their way to enjoy the luxuries of imprisonment, for by all accounts they'll fare better with us than they've been doing with their own people lately." "Did they put up a fight, sir?" asked Burnet. "They made a little noise until our main body came up. Unluckily that old rascal Halil's men got away on their horses, most of them: after our long march our horses were too fagged to round them up. But Halil won't give any more trouble in these parts." "And what of our big push, sir?" "We've started, and one may say that Bagdad will be our next stop. You'll be out of it, I'm afraid, young man; you'll be under treatment for synovitis or something of the sort when we march in." "I hope to goodness not, sir," said Burnet, pulling a long face. The colonel smiled.