22 
LAND & WATER 
October 12, 1916 
{Continued from page 20.) 
Peter was awake, and we stirred Blenkiron out of heavy 
slumber. We were bidden take off our boots and liang 
tliem by their htces round our necks as country boys do when 
tlicy want to go barefoot. Then we tiptoed to tlie door, 
which was ajar. 
Outside was a passage with a flight of steps at one end which 
led to the open air. On these step^ lay a faint shine of star- 
light, and by its help 1 saw a man hutldled up at the foot of 
them. It was our sentry, neatly and scientifically gagged 
and tied up. 
The steps brought us to a little courtyard about wliich 
the walls of the houses rose like cliffs. We halted while 
Iftissin listened intently. Apparently the coast was clear 
and our guide led us to one side, which was clothed by a 
stout wooden trellis. Once it may have supported fig-trees, 
but now tlie plants were dead and only withered tendrils and 
"otten stumps remained. 
It Wiis child's play for Peter ami me to go up that trellis, 
but it was the deuce and all for llienkiron. He was in poor 
condition and puffed like a grampus, and he seemed to have 
no sort of head lor heights. But he was as game as a buffalo, 
and started in gallantly till his arms gave out and he fairly 
stuck. So Peter and I went up on each side of him, taking 
an arm apiece, as I had once seen done to a man with vertigo 
in the Kloof Chimney on Table Mountain. I was mighty 
thankful when I got him panting on the top and Hussin had 
shinned up beside us. 
We crawled along a broadish wall, with an inch or two of 
powdery snow on it, and then up a sloping buttress on to 
the flat roof of the house. It was a miserable business for 
Blenkiron, who would certainly have fallen if he could have 
seen what was below him, and Peter and I had to stand to 
attention all the time. Then began a more difficult job. 
Hussin pointed out a ledge which took us past a stack of chim- 
neys to another building slightly lower, this being the route 
he fancied. At that I sat down resolutely and put on my boots, 
and the others followed. Frost-bitten feet would be a poor 
asset in this kind of travelling. 
It was a bad step for Blenkiron, rnd we only got him past 
it by Peter and I spread-eagling ourselves against the wall 
and passing him in front of us with his face towards us. We 
had no grip, and if he had stumbled we should all three have 
been in the courtyard. But we got it over, and cropped as 
softly as possible on to the roof of the next house. Hussin 
had his finger to his lips, and I soon saw why. Por there was 
a hghted window in the wall we had descended. 
Some imp prompted me to wait behind and explore. The 
others followed Hussin and were soon at the far end of the 
roof, where a kind of wooden pavilion broke the line, while I 
tried to get a look inside. The window was curtained, and 
had two folding sashes which clasped in the middle. Through 
a gap in 1 he curtain I saw a little lamp-lit room and a big man 
sitting at a table littered with papers. 
I watched him, fascinated, as he turned to consult some 
document and made a marking on the map before him. Then 
he suddenly rose, stretched himself, cast a glance at the win- 
dow, and went out of the room, making a great clatter in 
descending the wooden staircase. He left the door ajar and 
the lamp burning. 
I guesseJ he had gone to have a look at his prisoners, in 
which case the show was up. But what filled my mind was 
an insane desire to get a sight of his map. . It was one of 
those mad impulses which utterly cloud right reason, a thing 
independent of any plan, a crazy leap in the dark. But it 
was so strong that I would have pulled that window out by 
its frame, if need be, to get to that table. 
There was no need, for the flimsy clasp gave at the first 
pull, and the sashes swung open. I scrambled in, after 
listening for steps on the stairs. I crumpled up the map 
and stuck it in my pocket, as well as the paper from which 
I had seen him copying. Very carefully I removed all marks 
of my entry, brushed away the snow from the boards, puU; d 
•back the curtain, got out and refastened the window. Still 
there was no sound of his return. Then I started off to 
•catch up the others. 
I found them shivering in the roof pavilion. " We've got to 
move pretty fast," I said, " for I've just be«n burgling old 
Stiimm's private cabinet. Hussin, my lad, d'you hear that ? 
They may be after us any moment, so I pray Heaven we soon 
strike better going. 
Hussin understood. He led us at a smart pace from one 
roof to another, for here they were all of the same height, 
and only low parapt-ts and screens divided them. We never 
saw a soul, for a winters night is not tlie time you choose to 
saunter on your housetop. I kept my ears open for trouble 
behind us, and in about five minutes I heard it. A riot of 
voices broke out, witli one louder than the rest, and, looking 
back. I saw lanterns waving. Stumm had realised his loss 
and found tlie tracks of the thief. 
Hussin gave one glance behind nntl then hurried us on at a 
break-neck pace with old Blenkiron gasping and stumbling. 
The shouts behind us grew louder, as if some eye quicker 
than the rest had caught our movement in the starlit darkness. 
It was very evident tliat if they kept up the chase we should 
be caught, for Blenkiron was about as useful on a roof as a 
hippo. 
Presently we came to a big drop, with a kind of ladder 
down it, and at the foot a shallow ledge running to the left 
into a pit of darkness. Hussin gripped my arm and pointed 
down it. " Follow it," he whispered, " and you will reach a 
roof which spans a street. Cross it, and on the other side is 
a mosque. Turn to the right there and you will find easy 
going for fifty metres, well screened from the higher roofs. 
For Allah's sake keep in the shelter of the screen. Some- 
where there I will join you." 
He hurried us along the ledge for a bit and then went bacK, 
and with snow from the comers covered up our tracks. After 
that he went straight on himself, taking strange short steps 
like a bird. I saw his game. He wanted to lead our pursuers 
after him, and he had to multiply the tracks, and trust to 
Stumm's fellows net spotting that they all were made by 
one man. 
But I had quite enough to think of in getting Blenkiron 
along that ledge. He was pretty nearly foundered, he was 
in a sweat of terror, and as a matter of fact he was taking 
one of the biggest risks of his life, for we had no rope and his 
neck depended on himself. I could hear him invokmg 
some unknown deity called Holy Mike. But he ventured 
gallantly, and we got to the roof which ran across the strict. 
That was easier, though ticklish enough, but it was no joke 
skirting the cupola of that infernal mosque. At last we 
found the parapet and breathed more freely, for we were now 
under shelter from the direction of danger. I spared a 
moment to look round, and thirty yards off, across the street, 
I saw a weird spectacle. 
The hunt was proceeding along the roofs parallel to the 
one we were lodged on. I saw the flicker of the lanterns, 
waved up and down as the bearers slipped in the snow, and 
I heard their cries like hounds on a trail. Stumm was not 
among them ; he had not the shape for that sort of business. 
They passed us and continued to our left, now hid by a jutting 
chimney, now clear to view against the sky line. The roots 
they were on were perhaps six feet higher than ours, so even 
from our shelter we could mark their course. If Hussin 
were going to be hunted across Erzerum it was a bad look-out 
for us, for I hadn't the foggiest notion where we were or 
where we were going to. 
But as we watched we saw something more. The wavering 
lanterns were now three or four hundred yards away, but on 
the roofs just opposite us across the street there appeared a 
man's figure. I thought it was one of the hunters, and we all 
crouched lower, and then I recognised the lean agility oi 
Hussin. He must have doubled back, keeping in the dusk 
to the left of the pursuit, and taking big risks in the open 
places. But there he was now, exactly in front of us, and 
separated only by the width of the narrow street. 
He took a step backward, gathered himself for a spring 
and leaped clean over th^ gap. Like a cat he lighted on the 
parapet above us, and stumbled forward with the impetus 
right on our heads. 
" We are safe for the moment," he whispered, " but when 
they miss me they will return. We must make good haste. " 
The next half-hour was a maze of twists and turns, slipping 
down icy roofs and climbing icier chimneystacks. The stir 
of the city had gone, and from the black streets below came 
scarcely a sound. But always the great tattoo of guns beat 
in the east. Gradually we descended to a lower level, till we 
emerged on the top of a shed in a courtyard. Hussin gave an 
odd sort of cry, like a demented owl, and something began 
to stir below us. 
It was a big covered wagon, full of bundles of forage, and 
drawn by four mules. As we descended from the shed into 
the frozen litter of the yard, a man came out of the shade 
and spoke low to Hussin. Peter and I lifted Blenkiron into 
the cart, and scrambled in beside him, and I never felt any- 
thing more blessed than the warmth and softness of that 
place after the frosty roofs. I had forgotten all about my 
hunger, and only yearned for sleep. Presently the wagon 
moved out of the courtyard into the dark streets. 
Then Blenkiron began to laugh, a deep internal rumble 
which shook him violently and brought down a heap of 
forage on Lis head. I thought it was hysterics, the relief 
from the tension of the past hour. But it wasn't. His 
body might be out of training, but there was never anything 
the matter with his nerves. He was consumed with honest 
merriment. 
" Say, Major," he gasped, " I don't usually cherish dislikes 
for my fellow men, but somehow I didn't cotton to Colonel 
Stumm. But now I almost love him. You hit his jaw very 
bad in Germany, and now you've annexed his priyate file, 
(Continued on pa^e 24.) 
