and the potter's field at the end. The war came; and he looked on death in every hideous form, never to see the shielding, guiding hand of God, though every Gospel wallah and bible puncher told of His mercy and loving kindness.
He laughed cynically.
"So," he concluded,"'ave it as you like. Gawd or no Gawd, I'm 'aving none in mine. A signaler corpril I am, Elijah Twing wot rose from the ranks by 'is own 'elp, knowing that if 'e must trust somebody, it was 'imself, Signaler Corpril Twing."
He had said it all before, in barracks, on the transport, in camp on the desert's outermost rim. It was long familiar to the man at his side, who gave no heed, his eyes incessantly sweeping the valley's length.
Watchful as he was, he did not see the figure six hundred yards away, clinging like a fly to the sheer wall, up which he had been working for an hour past.
The ledge on which they lay commanded the knife-cut in the hills known as the Abu Hajar Pass. To gain the desert and Deli Abbas, the Turks must run the gauntlet of the gun's murderous fire. Alone of the outpost of twenty men, Twing and Carson had been able to gain it; where they remained, straining anxious eyes toward Deli Abbas and the supporting column. The Thirteenth Turkish Army Corps, and the
