had arrived to consummate the day's work. A signal was made from the flagship to land armed parties. Joyfully the order was received, for the British seaman is not content with doing a lot of damage from afar; he must needs see for himself the result of his efforts.

Still maintaining a steady fire with their secondary batteries, the ships proceeded to hoist out their boats. Into these dropped seamen and marines, armed with rifles and bayonets, Maxims were passed into the boats, and charges of gun-cotton carefully stowed away for future use in completing the destruction of the Turkish guns.

"At this rate we'll be through in less than a week," remarked Midshipman Sefton to Dick, as they sat in the stern-sheets of a launch packed with armed seamen. The launch was in tow of a steam pinnace, while astern of her were two more boats, equally crowded.

"Seems like it," answered Crosthwaite, as he looked towards the rapidly nearing shore—a wild, precipitous line of rocks, surmounted by a pile of masonry that a few hours before was one of the strongest points of defence of the Dardanelles. "The Commander told me that the mine-sweepers ought to clear away all the mines as far as the Narrows within the next twenty-four hours. It's in the Narrows we're going to have a tough job."

Without a shot being fired—for the moral of the Turks seemed crushed—the boats grounded on the shore, and rapidly but in perfect order the demolition party landed, formed up, and began the difficult climb to the already sorely battered fort.

"What are you doing here, Sefton?" asked the Sub, observing that the midshipman was following him. "Your place is in your boat, you know."

"I asked the Commander's permission," replied Sefton. "It's not every day that I get a chance of examining a demolished position."

If the truth be told, Sefton was somewhat disappointed. He expected a "bit of a scrap" and a chance to use the heavy Service revolver that he wore in a large, buff-leather holster. At present it was of no use; it was an encumbrance.

"Steady, men," cautioned Crosthwaite, as those of the section under his orders were pressing forward somewhat recklessly. "There may be an ambush."

The warning was justifiable, for the strange silence which brooded over the hillside was somewhat ominous. The Hammerer's men had landed in three parties, two being each under the command of a lieutenant, while Crosthwaite had the third. Between these bodies of men there a keen rivalry as to who should first reach the demolished fort; and as each was advancing by a separate route and was almost entirely hidden from the others, the Sub's party had no means of judging the pace of their friendly competitors.

"'Ware barbed wire."

The men brought up suddenly. They were approaching the nearmost limit of the shell-torn ground. Deep cavities had been made in the rocky soil by the explosions of the heavy projectiles, yet the outer line of barbed wire was almost intact. The posts supporting the obstruction had been blown to atoms, but the wires were twisted and fused into a long, single, and almost inflexible coil impervious to the attacks of the seamen provided with wire-cutters.

A ripping sound, followed by a yell, announced the failure of a burly bluejacket to wriggle under the obstruction. Pinned down by the barbed wire, he was unable to move until his comrades, with a roar of laughter at his hapless plight, succeeded in extricating him.

"We'll prise it up, sir," exclaimed a petty officer. "The men can then wriggle underneath."

"Won't do," objected the Sub firmly. "It will have to be removed."

Two men advanced with slabs of gun-cotton, but again Dick demurred.

"No explosives to be used in the demolition of obstructions," he ordered. "They must be kept for the enemy's guns. We don't want to alarm the rest of the landing-party. Bend a rope there, and half a dozen of you clap on for all you're worth."

A rope was speedily forthcoming. The stalwart bluejackets, digging their heels into the sloping ground, tugged heroically. The stout wire sagged, quivered, and resisted their efforts.

The Sub realized that the obstruction must be removed. Although it was possible to crawl underneath, as the petty officer had suggested, it would never do to leave a trap like that between the fort and the shore. In the event of an ambuscade and a retirement to the boats, delay in negotiating the entanglements might spell disaster.

Another half a dozen men assisted their comrades. Still the wire, now at a terrific tension, showed no signs of being wrenched from its hold.

"All together—heave!"

With a burly "Heave-ho" the dozen bluejackets made a fresh effort. Balked, they gave a tremendous jerk. Something had to go, but it was not the wire. The rope parted with a crack, and twelve seamen were struggling in a confused heap on the steep hillside, while little Sefton, caught by the human avalanche, found himself head over heels in a particularly aggressive thorn-bush.

"Work round to the right there, and see what the infernal wire is made fast to!" ordered the Sub impatiently. "Look alive there, or the others will be at the top before us."

Four or five men hastened to carry out his commands. The work was of a difficult nature, for on either side of the rugged path by which the party had ascended thus far the ground was precipitous and thickly dotted with bushes.

Figuratively hanging on by their eyebrows the seamen worked along, following the course of the aggressive wire, till they were lost to sight beyond a fantastically shaped boulder.

Suddenly one of the men reappeared.

"Here's a blessed 12-pounder, sir," he announced. "What are we to do with it?"

Followed by Midshipman Sefton, who in the excitement caused by this latest discovery had lost all interest in the painful operation of extracting thorns from various remote portions of his anatomy, Crosthwaite hastened to the spot with as much haste as the nature of the ground would permit. The rest of the men, with the exception of those detailed to carry the explosives, also scrambled over the intervening ground.

A ghastly sight met their gaze. Beyond the boulder, and screened from seaward by a partly-burnt cluster of brushwood, was a field-piece. One wheel of the carriage had been smashed. The other was held only by a few spokes, while the muzzle of the weapon was buried deep in the ground. Coiled round the chase and jammed between the trunnion and the carriage was the end of the barbed wire. The gun was splattered with the yellow deposit from the explosion of a British lyddite shell, while all around lay the mangled bodies of the Turkish artillerymen. Five yards to the rear of the damaged weapon were the scanty remains of a limber. The same shell that had wrought the destruction of the gun and the men who served it, had completely exploded the ammunition.

"Smash the breech mechanism!" ordered Dick.

Two of the armourer's crew sprang to the gun for the purpose of breaking the interrupted screw-thread that locks the breech-block in the gun. Their efforts were in vain, for the explosion of the shell had rendered the breech-block incapable of being moved.

A fresh rope was speedily forthcoming. Its bight was placed under the heel of the 12-pounder, and by the united efforts of the seamen the heavy weapon was up-ended and toppled over the slope. Crashing through the brushwood, it rolled and bounded for quite a hundred feet, then with a resounding splash disappeared underneath the waters of the Dardanelles. The remains of the carriage were then hurled over, but, held up by the barbed wire that had caused so much fruitless effort, the mass of shattered steel effected a twofold purpose in its fall. It swept the cliff path clear of brushwood and brought the barbed wire into a position that it no longer formed an obstruction.

"This way up, men!" exclaimed Dick, pointing to a fairly broad and easy path in the rear of the gun emplacement. The Turks had