Much of the fight for possession of the gateway to the pass was out of sight of the boys. For a time, they could see the figures of the dismounted revolutionaries creeping over the rocky road, hugging the walls, until they reached the barrier of fallen Janissaries and horses.
Across this barrier there flashed a continuous fire of weapons for some time, with no advantage to either side, so far as was apparent to those left in the plain.
Then a new element entered the situation with a distant sound of rifle fire, as the party of revolutionaries who had been sent to the west came into action at the rear of the Janissaries. These revolutionaries, the boys later learned, had clambered like goats up the face of the cliff and gained a position on the rocky western wall of the pass, from which they were enabled to assail the Janissaries in the rear.
A sudden burst of cheering in the distance was followed by the swarming of the revolutionaries in the pass across the wall of dead and wounded. Man after man disappeared without opposition, passing across the fallen and vanishing into the pass beyond the bend. Then for some time the sound of firing continued, growing ever more distant, until it no longer came back to those below.
Once more stillness descended in the hot desert and the narrow pass, now lying in shadow as the sun wheeled to the west and the steep western wall of rock cut off its rays. Only the horses, the Arabs on camel back circling slowly about them, Captain Amanassar, Jepthah and Mr. Hampton, three tiny figures afoot at the base of the pass, and the dead, remained.
Eaten up with anxiety as to the fate of Bob, a prisoner in the midst of the fighting so far as they knew, the boys no longer could contain their impatience. They saw a revolutionary return down the pass, making his way over the barrier of men and horses at the bend, picking a careful passage over the rocks below, and moving to report to Captain Amanassar.
“Come on, Jack, let’s hear what he has to say,” begged Frank. “I know your Dad told us to stay here, but the Arabs can look after the horses and I’ll go crazy if I don’t do something.”
Jack felt pretty nearly as cut up over the failure to rescue Bob, as did his comrade, and nodded in sympathy.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll go up and ask Dad what the messenger reports. Hardly likely, though, that he has any word of Bob.”
When they reached Mr. Hampton’s side, the messenger already had made his report. Jepthah, interpreting the reason for their approach, turned to them with a grave face.