Yes, where? There was a hue and cry outside: men were rushing to and fro, shouting and bellowing at one another, while a couple of the guard were speeding across the camp calling a warning to the sentries. For Esbul had disappeared. He had been at Geoff's side just a second before he tumbled, and those men in the rear rank of the Turkish guard could have sworn that he had knelt beside his comrade and had bent over him; and yet—and yet the darkness had swallowed him up; he had gone, slipped away like a will-o'-the-wisp, and no one had caught sight of him. Meanwhile Geoff had made a reasonably rapid recovery, and stood now beside Philip, swaying just a little—for he had to act the part—his face flushed just a trifle after his exertions, his breath coming in panting grunts.
"I'm sorry," he told Tewfic Pasha; "but the thing is over now; merely a spasm, a sudden dizziness, perhaps produced by those lusty fellows of yours who sat so heavily on me."
"And the promise you made has been kept," Tewfic smiled back at him, indeed his eyes twinkled—twinkled knowingly. "You gave me your word that you and your comrades would march towards this spot without attempting an escape, and when my guards laid their hands on you, within sight of this tent, and marched you forward, you were absolved of your promise. Listen!" he whispered in Geoff's ear a moment or so later, when he had an opportunity. "It is as well, my friend; it is just as well, for that other man was not of your country. Maybe he was of ours, maybe he was an Armenian."
The bright friendly eyes of the Turkish officer twinkled again, and a smile lit up his face, then, turning away, he accosted a Turk who approached at that moment from an ante-room erected behind this tent, which served as the Head-quarters of the Turkish Concentration.
"Prisoners, Excellency!" he said. "We captured three of them on the ridge, and doubtless they are scouts of an enemy party coming in this direction. They are British officers, Excellency, and once they were captured have behaved well and quietly. I have given them your word—the word of a man of honour—that they shall be well and kindly treated."
As a matter of fact, Geoff and Phil had no cause to complain of the treatment meted out to them, for, as we have said before, the Turks had already given many an illustration of the fact that they were both good and stanch soldiers and most excellent fellows. Once the fighting was done, once they had made captives or been captured, they forgot their enmity, and in the case of those they had made prisoners, treated them like human beings.
"You are to be sent up the Kut-el-Hai to the Tigris," said Tewfic Pasha, when the General in Command of the Turkish Concentration had inspected the prisoners and had cross-examined them. "I am commanded to see that quarters are found for you, and that you are given food and clothing. You will start on your journey to-morrow."
The following morning, in fact, at an early hour, found the two young officers aboard a small steam-launch, which at once set out for Kut-el-Amara. Arriving at that place on the River Tigris some three days later, they transhipped to a larger vessel, a paddle-steamer—as rusty and dilapidated as any of those which had come to the Shatt-el-Arab from India for service with the British. Then they were carried up the winding Tigris, and in due course, after days of twisting and turning along the numerous bends of the river, after running aground on sand-banks on many occasions, they reached at last the city of Bagdad—the Mecca of the Turks of Eastern Turkey and of the Arabs of Mesopotamia—and there, having been interrogated again by a Turkish officer, they were sent to a prison—a fort outside the city—the clanging gates of which shut on them with a force and a jar which, in spite of their buoyant spirits, sent a chill of despair through them.
"Nasty strong sort of a place," Philip whispered to his chum, as they passed under a low flat roof and along a stone passage. "No picking a hole through these walls with a penknife, my boy. It will have to be a case of strategy."
Geoff looked round him, for the bright sunlight outside sent slanting rays into the passage and lit up their surroundings.