The Turk firmly believes that certain places, bare hill-sides especially, are haunted by unpleasant bogies which he calls Djinns and Afrits. If ever any Turk was fully convinced that a Djinn had him, it must have been the sentry that Ken jumped on.
He landed absolutely straight on the man's shoulders, and down he went flat on his face, with Ken on top of him. His forehead struck the opposite wall of the trench, and though Ken wasted no time at all in getting hold of his throat, this was quite unnecessary. The wretched Turk was limp as a wet dish-rag and quite insensible.
'Good business, Ken!' said Roy, and glancing round Ken saw his chum kneeling on the chest of the second man, one big hand compressing his wind-pipe. 'Good business! We've got them both, and no fuss about it. Confound it! These fellows don't run to handkerchiefs. Wait a jiffy. I must get his belt off.'
Neither of the Turks was in condition to put up any resistance, and in a very few moments they were stripped of overcoats, shakos, and haversacks. They were then tied and carefully gagged.
Roy pulled on the overcoat of the bigger man.
'I've seen better fits,' he remarked. 'But it will do in this light. Now for that boat.'
'One minute!' said Ken, 'let's just see what they were guarding.'
He slipped along the trench, Roy after him, and a few yards farther on it sloped downwards, then widened into a deepish semicircular excavation. In the middle of this was a great lump of something which, as they came nearer, resolved itself into a gun of some sort. It was very thick, very short, it stood on a concrete platform, and its squat muzzle pointed almost straight up into the air.
'It's a howitzer,' said Ken.
'Rummiest looking howitzer I ever saw,' Roy answered. 'Looks as if it came out of the Ark.'