"And now?" asked Philip, when it was quite certain that they were not likely to be apprehended. "Oh----! 'Now,' well, that wants some deciding." Geoff scratched his dishevelled head of hair and pondered, for indeed the matter was one which would have taxed the wisdom of an older man--even the cunning of von Hildemaller. For they were out in the open, free of their cell it was true, but yet in an enemy country, surrounded by Turks, without a friend to appeal to. Yet what they had done so far gave them encouragement for the future. "We'll have to be like that Mr. Micawber of Dickens," said Phil, as they crouched beside the wall, "we'll just have to wait for something to turn up, and you bet your boots something's bound to." CHAPTER XVII The Road to Bagdad Free from prison, after an adventure the success of which might well stimulate them to greater effort, to greater daring, and give them hopes beyond any they had possessed during the weary weeks of waiting which had passed, it was yet not by any means certain that Geoff Keith and his chum Philip would ever win their way back to that Expeditionary Force with which they had landed in Mesopotamia. It was weeks and weeks, and it seemed to them years, since they had been captured with Esbul at Nasiriyeh; and though their jailer had not been entirely uncommunicative--for at heart he was quite a genial fellow, and the thought of reward warmed his heart wonderfully--yet they had failed to hear of the easy, bloodless capture of Amara. Indeed, all tidings of the Mesopotamian invading force had ceased; and whether it had retired, whether it still hung on to the banks of the River Tigris, what its fortunes were now, were withheld from them. "If we don't get out soon there won't be an Englishman left in the whole of Mesopotamia," Philip grumbled one day during their long and tedious imprisonment, when he was perhaps a trifle bilious, and feeling out of sorts and out of temper. "Everything's wrong". And Geoff had grinned at him, an irritating grin, which had roused the irate Philip to a state of anger which set him stuttering, and which caused him to clench those powerful fists of his--made powerful by the exercises he and Geoff practised. But just as suddenly as his cheeks had flamed with anger, just as quickly as he had allowed natural vexation and irritation to get the better of him, Philip's better sense, his honest heart, his real affection for his chum, caused him suddenly to beam upon him. "I'm in a rotten humour," he told him, "just the sort of humour in which a fellow grumbles, asks 'What's the good of anything?' and grouses 'Nuffin'." "I've felt the same often enough," Geoff told him, "and I dare say you've known it, and have seen what a nasty sulky beast I could be. You see, fellows chained up like this, close together in a cell, get to know all there is that's worth knowing about a chap--all the good side, you know."