Part 33 (2/2)

'I stay with my friends,' said Sandy

'Then I will offer more I will save your friends They, too, shall share in my triumph'

This was too much for Blenkiron He scra froround with a groan

Then she seemed to make a last appeal She spoke in Turkish now, and I do not knohat she said, but I judged it was the plea of a woman to her lover Once more she was the proud beauty, but there was a tremor in her pride-I had almost written tenderness To listen to her was like horrid treachery, like eavesdropping on sorew scarlet and Blenkiron turned away his head

Sandy's face did notthat I desire,' he said 'I am the servant of my country, and her enemies are mine I can have neither part nor lot with you That is my answer, Madam von Eineiving before a pent-up auntlets and hurled it in his face Implacable hate looked out of her eyes

'I have done with you,' she cried 'You have scorned rave'

She leaped on the parapet and the next second was on the glacis Once un in place and men around it ere not Turkish She waved her hand to them, and hastened down the hillside

But at that e Russian shell A the boulders there was the dull shock of an explosion and a mushroom of red earth It all passed in an instant of tiunners on the road point their hands and I heard them cry; I heard too, a kind of sob from Blenkiron-all this before I realizedI saas Sandy, already beyond the glacis, leaping with great bounds down the hill They were shooting at him, but he heeded theht, and his whereabouts was shown only by the patter of bullets

Then he ca quite slowly up the last slope, and he was carrying so in his arms The enemy fired no more; they realized what had happened

He laid his burden down gently in a corner of the castrol The cap had fallen off, and the hair was breaking loose The face was very white but there was no wound or bruise on it

'She was killed at once,' I heard himent dick, we must bury her hereYou see, sheshe liked me I can uard, and with infinite slowness, using our hands and our knives, we rave below the eastern parapet When it was done we covered her face with the linen cloak which Sandy had worn thatHe lifted the body and laid it reverently in its place

'I did not know that anything could be so light,' he said

It wasn't for me to look on at that kind of scene I went to the parapet with Blenkiron's field-glasses and had a stare at our friends on the road There was no Turk there, and I guessed why, for it would not be easy to use the reen ephod The eneun They see As I looked I saw behind thenize Stumm had come to see the destruction of his eneun in the fields just below the ot us on both sides, and there was no way of escape Hilda von Eineoodly co now, a clear bright dusk where the stars pricked through a sheen of amethyst The artillery were busy all around the horizon, and towards the pass on the other road, where Fort Palantuken stood, there was the dust and smoke of a furious bouns on the other fronts had come nearer Deve Boyun was hidden by a spur of hill, but up in the north, white clouds, like the strealen The whole fir that has been struck

As I looked, the gun to the west fired-the gun where Stuht A second later another fell behind us

Blenkiron had dragged himself to the parapet I don't suppose he had ever been shelled before, but his face showed curiosity rather than fear

'Pretty poor shooting, I reckon,' he said

'On the contrary,' I said, 'they know their business They're bracketing '

The words were not out ofus It struck the far risome small scratches no one was a penny the worse I rerave

I pulled Blenkiron over the far parapet, and called on the rest to follow, h side of the hill But as we showed ourselves shots rang out froe of a few hundred yards It was easy to see what had happened Riflemen had been sent to hold us in rear They would not assault so long as we remained in the castrol, but they would block any atteun had us at their mercy