A look of satisfaction spread over the face of the speechless motor-cyclist, then, staggering, he fell unconscious into the arms of Sergeant Archer, as a shell whizzing a couple of feet over the non-com.'s head buried itself deep in the ground, fortunately without exploding. Willing hands relieved the sergeant of his burden and lifted the unconscious soldier into the Tank. A precious three minutes had been lost, but, did Ralph but know it, the retransmission of the dispatch was of far more vital importance than the work of succouring the stranded landship. But by the time Setley's Tank arrived upon the scene the situation was serious enough. The bogged consort was lying on the floor of a vertical pit twenty feet in depth--a cunningly devised trap right in front of a hitherto masked position, where nearly a hundred of the Prussian Guard, supported by a strong machine-gun detachment, still held out. Into the pit the Huns were lobbing bombs galore. These did but little damage, although the fumes were trying the crew of the trapped mammoth very severely, and, to make matters worse, the enemy had brought up a liquid flame apparatus from an undemolished dug-out and were about to squirt a fiery stream upon the helpless and hapless Tankers. In front of the position lay between forty and fifty dead or wounded Highlanders--reserves, who, caught in the open while advancing in support of an Irish battalion, had been surprised and mown down by machine-gun fire. The wily Prussians had lain low when the first wave of British had swept over their trenches, and by one of those inexplicable omissions a detachment had not been left to consolidate and clear up the captured ground. Several of the wounded Jocks frantically cheered the oncoming Tank, at the same time shouting warnings that there was a pitfall in front. Some of them actually staggered to their feet, and grasping their rifles followed the ponderous landship as it approached the ridge held by the men of the Prussian Guard. Almost at the brink of the exposed trap Setley brought his command to a halt. While the quickfirers and machine-guns replied most effectually to the Boches' fire the subaltern examined from the interior of the Tank the nature and extent of the barrier that lay betwixt him and the enemy. The pit measured roughly fifty feet by thirty. A little less than half of the covering still remained--fir planks covered with a few inches of clay that harmonized with the surrounding ground. Unless the Huns had constructed another pitfall alongside this one, it would be practicable to pass it by keeping a few yards to the left. The roof of the trapped Tank was plainly visible, but there were no signs of any of her crew. In their unenviable position they could do nothing in self-defence. The edge of the pit intervened between the muzzles of the Tank's guns and the hostile trench, but this did not prevent the Huns hurling their bombs over the parapet into the pit.