who was still sleeping peacefully.

'Daylight,' said Ken briefly. 'Time to get out of this.'

Roy sat up and stretched his great frame.

'What a life!' he said with a laugh. 'Yes, I suppose we'd best be
shifting.'

'Shall we breakfast now, or wait till we get up topside?' asked Ken.

Roy gave him a quick look.

'It might be as well to feed now,' he said quietly. 'You see, I haven't a
notion how we're going to get out of this.'

Ken stared. Such a point of view had never occurred to him. He had such
implicit faith in Roy's mountaineering capacity that he had taken it
absolutely for granted that Roy could find a way back to firm ground.

CHAPTER IX

THE BATTLE BY ROCKS

Roy saw Ken's dismay.

'Sorry, old chap,' he said simply. 'I thought you understood.'

Ken smiled back.

'I'm afraid I took it for granted that you had it all pat. You see, I
don't know the first thing about mountaineering myself. Can't we get back
the same way we came?'

Roy shook his head.

'It's too big a reach. But don't worry. We'll find some way out. Stop here
a minute and I'll go and have a squint round.'

Ken looked at him.

'You'll be careful, Roy? Hadn't I better come and give you a hand?'

'I'll call you if I want you,' said Roy. 'I'm going to see where this
ledge leads.'

He strolled off as calmly as though walking along a twelve-inch ledge over
a two hundred foot drop was as simple as a promenade down the sunny side
of Piccadilly. Ken, feeling anything but happy, watched him until he was
hidden behind a shoulder of rock.

It was quite five minutes before he came back.

'It's all right,' he said cheerfully. 'True, we can't get up, but I think
we can get down. This ledge drops a long way, and there seems to be
another below it. Let's have our grub and go along.'

He ate his share of Ken's rations with evident appetite, and Ken did his
best to follow his example. But it would be idle to say that Ken felt
happy. Glancing down into the tremendous depths that yawned below, he felt
that he would infinitely rather charge a score of Turks, single-handed,
than try to make his way down the face of the gigantic wall of rock.

Roy finished his food, brushed the crumbs from his tunic, and taking the
bayonet which--with the automatic pistol captured from Kemp--were the only
weapons they had, walked off along the ledge.

Ken set his teeth and followed.

'Look up, not down,' said Roy quietly, and Ken did his best to obe