Events now began to move much more rapidly. There was not much difficulty in deciding what to do, and in any case, on these occasions one acts almost intuitively. If we thought consciously at all, it was that though we were hardly in a position to dispute these men's demands, seeing that our revolvers were only imaginary, we could at any rate give them a run for their money--or, more accurately, for our clothes. To give them these without a struggle was tantamount to relinquishing once and for all what little hope remained of getting out of Turkey; it would further involve the very unpleasant, if not positively dangerous, experience of spending several days and nights in the friendless desert, with next to no clothes or food. Cochrane and Grunt, at any rate, did not hesitate for a moment, although for the last few minutes one of the armed men had been covering them at a range of little over a hundred yards, and was sure to fire when they turned. And so it happened; but a sustained aim does not make for good shooting, and the shot went wide. The remaining six waited for the two to rejoin them, and then all of us, extending into skirmishing order, began a hasty retreat. The chances were not very equal: even if both sides had been unarmed, we were severely handicapped by our packs and water-bottles. The two full chargals Johnny and Looney had to empty as they ran. Moreover, although by this time we were in hard enough training, we could scarcely expect to possess sufficient stamina for a protracted retirement; and if the ordinary villagers of this lawless countryside were in the habit of turning brigand on every favourable opportunity, we might have others joining in the chase when the first tired of it: a second village had already come into view. But there was little time to be thinking of all these possibilities; we had the more immediate danger of being hit by one of our pursuers' bullets. As soon as they had seen us take to flight they had reopened fire. One of the rifles was obviously a Mauser, the other gave the impression of being rather an antiquated old blunderbuss; but it is not pleasant to stop even one of those comparatively slow-moving lumps of lead. Strangely enough, however, none of us felt afraid for his own safety: the chief fear of each was that some one else of the party might be hit, which would mean that all our plans of escape would have to go by the board, for we should naturally all have stayed with the wounded man. Providentially, the wild villagers' shooting was not very good, although one shot struck the ground between Nobby and Perce. [Illustration: _Sketched to Authors' description by Hal Kay._ THE FLIGHT FROM MOSES' WELL.]