he centre of his
forehead, and he realised that the lieutenant had been killed
instantaneously!

It was a moment or two before he ventured to look down again, and,
peeping cautiously over the edge of the car as the cheering became very
distinct, he saw the enemy trench pass out of sight beneath him, and
felt the basket tearing its way among the topmost branches of the wood.

Something had got to be done, he knew; and as the top of a tall tree
rose above the level of his eyes, and the doomed balloon paused with a
sickening jerk, he grasped at a branch, flung himself out, and dangled
there.

Relieved of his weight, the balloon, almost on the point of collapsing,
dragged itself free of the twigs that held it with a last effort, and
floated away to drop on the other side of the wood.

He could hear the excited clamour as men left the trench and ran towards
it; and even in the midst of his extraordinary peril he was fired with a
wild desire to escape.

His manoeuvre had not been seen, and, lowering himself rapidly hand
under hand, he gained the foot of the tree which had proved his
salvation, torn and bleeding, but with every nerve of mind and body on
the alert.

"They've not got me yet!" he muttered, as he looked about him; and,
crawling on hands and knees, crept under the trunk of a fallen tree half
a dozen yards away, where he lay down flat on his face.

The very ground beneath him seemed to shake with every discharge, and
the roar of the firing was continuous. Not only were both sides flinging
a terrific barrage to check the arrival of reinforcements, but half a
dozen isolated actions were taking place at various points of the
extended battle line. From Trones Wood to Contalmaison Villa heavy
fighting was in progress, and Dennis raged inwardly that by his own
fault he should have neither act nor part in any of it.

Presently, as he lay with his ear to the ground, he caught another sound
much nearer than that of the firing--the thud of men running in heavy
boots in his vicinity; and, worming himself still deeper among the
undergrowth that surrounded the fallen tree, he drew his Webley revolver
and waited.

About a dozen of the enemy came past the tree on either side of it,
peering this way and that, and stirring such brushwood as remained with
their fixed bayonets.

"Pooh!" said one of them, "this is a fool's quest. What is the good of
looking for a man who has got a broken neck by this time?"

"What is the