flash of lyddite and an up-flung pall of dust and _debris_.

There was a pause, cut short by the clap of the bursting shell
reverberating like thunder against the foot-hills beyond the town.

A little naked boy ran in an attitude of terrified dismay up the
water-street just as the first four-point-seven fired. I saw him through
my glasses duck his head between his arms, then dive panic-stricken
through a doorway as the fort was smitten again in dust and thunder.
"Was the poor little beggar hit?"

"No, sir, only scared."

While the target was still veiled in its dust the second four-point-seven
spoke, and the minaret disappeared from view behind a dun-coloured
shroud.

"Cease fire" sounded at once. "Who fired that gun? Take him off," came
in tones of stern rebuke from the bridge. Luckily the minaret showed
intact as the dust drifted clear and firing continued.

As the fort crumbled under our guns, Turkish soldiers began to break
cover at various points of the town and fled across the plain. The
cutter, in-shore, opened with Maxim-fire, and so accurately that we
could see the sombre-clad figures lying here and there or seeking
frantically for cover, while an Arab in their vicinity, leading a
leisurely camel, continued his stroll inland unperturbed. We drove the
main body out of their hidden position and into the hills with
well-timed shrapnel, and finished up by demolishing the Customs (where a
lot of ammunition blew up), to the temporary satisfaction of my
fisherman, who was curled up in a corner of the bridge, nearly stunned
by the shock of modern ordnance in spite of the cotton-wool I had made
him put in his ears. Before we picked up our cutter the civil population
was already streaming back.

The incident is worth noting in view of remarks made by a popular
fiction-monger in one of his latest works, that indiscriminate aerial
raids on civil centres in England are on the same level of humanity as
naval bombardments.

I visited the fishing-banks off Hasani Island a week or so after to get
the latest news of Um-Lejj, which came from Turkish sources. There was
one civilian casualty--a woman who was in the Turkish concealed
position. No casualties among Turkish officers, but one of them left in
charge of the fort had disappeared. There were bits of the fort left,
but the Commandant had moved his headquarters to the school-house within
the precincts of the mosque--sagacious soul. The object-lesson which we
gave t