"Pull that dinghy aboard at once," commanded Geoff; "and one of you can take charge of this prisoner. I don't think you'll find he'll be a nuisance, for I've told him to expect a shot if he tries any nonsense. Now then, get up steam as fast as you can, for, at the first streak of dawn, I mean to get away and make a rush for the river." Long before the sun was up, and whilst a thick mist still hung over the marshes, the launch was poled out of the channel in which she had been hidden, and was gently forced towards the Euphrates. Once arrived in the centre of the stream she was allowed to drift, power now and again being applied to her propeller so as to keep her under control and allow the steersmen to direct her. Half an hour later she slowly drifted by the hull of the steamer aboard which Geoff and Phil had made such an adventurous visit on the previous evening, now stranded high and dry on a sand-bank. Unobserved, the launch swept onward, and very soon, when the first rays of the sun had sucked up the mist, and made the course of the stream easily visible, the engine was set to work, and they shot down-stream at a rate which rapidly brought them to the Shatt-el-Arab. By then the Turk had recovered his composure, and, thanks to the blanket with which he was provided, had been able to get rid of his wet clothing. Indeed, he became quite communicative, and long before the launch had reached the opposite side of the Shatt-el-Arab he had told Geoff all he knew of the disposition of the Turkish forces. Thus the two young officers who had been sent into the marshes to gather news of the enemy returned, having brilliantly achieved their object. "The information will be of the greatest service," they were told. "We are making dispositions to meet this Turkish force of whom you have gained tidings, and then the expedition will fight its way up the Shatt-el-Arab and into the heart of Mesopotamia." Fighting, indeed, was before the British Expedition, for though their goal was the city of Bagdad--a jewel in the eyes of the Turks and the Arabs of this region--there were leagues of sands and marshes between them and it, and thousands of the enemy. CHAPTER XI A Soldiers' Battle Bugles were resounding throughout the expeditionary camp, stationed close to the bank of the Shatt-el-Arab, within two mornings of the return of Geoff and his chum from their adventurous journey into the wastes and marshes of the Euphrates. There was, perhaps, a sharper, more jubilant ring about the notes of those instruments on this particular morning, notes which brought men hurrying to join the ranks, which set troopers saddling their horses with an energy and rapidity which perhaps had been lacking on the previous day, and which caused radiant smiles and a glow of enthusiasm to spread throughout the ranks of the force.