At the same time, from beyond the bend in the pass, came the rattle of rifles, and this time three horses with empty saddles and a fourth dragging the body of a fallen man whose foot was caught in the saddle and who bumped sickeningly over the rocks, came down the rock-choked pass.
In one illuminating flash the meaning of the situation appeared to Jack. Shouting across the gap separating him from Frank, racing beside him, he called:
“Rebels followed ’em into the pass and were ambushed, I’ll bet.”
Frank made no answer. His face was white. Undoubtedly, he thought, Jack had read the situation aright. Then what of Bob? Had he been killed in the fighting? Or had his captors escaped with him into the interior?
Another man and another tumbled down the pass, his horse taking the rocks at a sickening pace, until ten were gathered at the foot, where Jepthah and Amonasis could be seen rallying them. Just as Frank and Jack gained the group, one more revolutionary turned the bend, from beyond which the sound of firing had drawn closer, and came down the pass. The boys gasped in mingled admiration of his daring horsemanship and fear for him.
He sat loosely in his saddle, the reins lying on his horse’s neck, leaving the sagacious animal to pick his own way over the rock-strewn course. Half-turned about, he held rifle to shoulder. Not thirty feet behind him another horseman suddenly appeared rounding the sharp turn in the pass, and the rifle of the revolutionary cracked and almost simultaneously the other pitched from his saddle.
A cheer went up from those in the plain, and with a wave of the hand in acknowledgment, the lone revolutionary continued the descent.
“Who is he?” asked Jack of Jepthah, beside whom he had pulled up his camel.
“Captain Amanassar on his wonder horse, Sheelah,” replied the other in a tone of pride. “Here they come. Give them a volley,” he added, and raising his voice shouted a similar command in Athensian.
Only five of the Athensians carried rifles, and none was a modern arm. They were long barrelled Arab weapons. However, with these they shot over the head of Captain Amanassar, while their comrades loosed a flight of arrows, and Jack, Frank, Jepthah and Amonasis also joined in. The repeaters of the boys worked deadly execution, and the head of a tumultuous mass of Athensian Janissaries which, pushed forward apparently by the weight of numbers in the rear, swept around the bend in the pass on the heels of the fallen leader whom Captain Amanassar had shot down, melted away. Men and horses fell in a writhing heap on the narrow, rock-strewn causeway, and effectually blocked the advance of those behind.