He rose swiftly to his feet and went off along the wall, the fingers of one hand trailing along the stones of which it was composed. Perhaps he went a hundred paces, more than that even, before the wall ended abruptly, the termination being jagged and broken. A few feet beyond was what appeared in the dim light to be a ruined house, while a few paces more brought him to a cobbled street, into which a shell fell as he entered. Stepping back into the shelter of a doorway, against which he happened to have arrived, Dick waited for the following explosion. Then he crossed the street, stepped on the narrow footway beyond and bumped heavily into an individual at that moment emerging from an opening in the house opposite. At once an angry shout burst from this stranger, while Dick distinctly heard the clatter of the end of a sword against the rough cobbles of the pathway. A moment later there was a glimmer of light, a hand shot out of the darkness and seized him by the collar, while the dark lantern, with its slide now drawn fully open, was turned upon him. "Ah! Who goes racing about the streets thus at night when every soldier should be in the trenches, and every dog of a civilian in his house?" The light was flashed full into his face. From the darkness behind the lamp a pair of fierce Turkish eyes glared at Dick Hamshaw, and in an instant the individual who had spoken shouted loudly. "What! A European!" he cried. "In uniform too! How now? A spy!" It may be imagined that poor Dick was dumbfounded. Not that he was ignorant of what had been said or shouted by this stranger, for Dick was quite a travelled individual and something of a linguist. But then he was the son of a sailor, and his father had for some considerable while been attached to the British Embassy at Constantinople. It happened, then, that Dick spent some five years in that cosmopolitan city, where he was surrounded by Ottomans, and forced to speak the language to some extent at least, simply because his father's servants were Turkish. There need be no surprise, therefore, that he at once took in the gist of what was shouted, while he blinked at the lantern held so close to his face. Then the hand gripping his collar seemed to stir him to action, that and the fact that it suddenly left his clothing, while there came a curious rasping sound telling him that this man had drawn his sword. Things were looking decidedly unpleasant he decided. But what was he to do? Bolt! No, certainly not, for as the man swung to draw his weapon the lamp was turned partly upon his own person, and in a flash Dick saw that a revolver hung in his open holster. More than that, he saw that this was an officer. The very next second, before the sabre had quite left its scabbard, he had lunged forward desperately with one fist, into which he put all the force of which he was capable.