Alec was busily manipulating his camera, and Hugh chuckled when he found that the other was taking in the entire scene, showing the operator with his instrument, as well as the scouts gathered near by. Billy, too, had made the same discovery, for he was smiling as sweetly as he knew how, and had again assumed that martial attitude which he seemed to consider made him such a striking figure.
Evidently this little expedition was bound to be fruitful with results, and on their return home those who were along would have something to show for their labors. Even if that eccentric relative of Alec's lost the chance to obtain a quiet retreat "far from the madding crowd," as Billy had once described it, their week-end outing promised to be well worth the effort it cost them individually and collectively.
They watched everything that was being done. It was astonishing to see what an amount of stuff the players had fetched along from the city, in order to carry out the battle scene true to the original, as they understood it. Why, even the rude bridge that had been thrown across the moat had been fashioned beforehand, and was carried with them in sections, like one of those ready-built houses Hugh remembered seeing advertised, that "any boy could put together."
The stage director was fuming, and saying a lot of hard things, as though some of the stupid acts of the army of supers nearly drove him distracted. By degrees he managed to whip his forces into the shape he wanted before he gave the warning signal that the fun was about to commence.
"Whee!" Billy was saying half to himself as he stared at the bustling scene, "but wouldn't it be great if only we'd been asked to put on some suits like those fellows are wearing, and have a chance to climb up the ladders? I bet you now we'd show them how to break through, no matter what the men on the walls tried to put on us. But shucks! that'd be too big luck; and besides, it could hardly be fair for us boys to steal the thunder of those hard-working actors. There, he's going to give the signal for the mimic war to begin. Everybody take a big breath and sail in! Now, go it, you terriers; the battle's on again!"
CHAPTER X
THE ASSAULT ON THE "CASTLE."
"Yes, there goes the signal!" burst from the excited Alec, as they saw the manager suddenly raise his hand, and fire a revolver three times in quick succession.
Immediately everybody seemed to get busy at once. Most of the battle-scarred veterans, who knew their business so well, started in just about where the last stirring scene had left off. Possibly those who had been "killed" in the former desperate assault had found time to come mysteriously to life again, leaving a dummy in their stead to be ruthlessly trampled on, now assumed new places in the ranks, to make the assailants and defenders look more like a veritable "host."
The scouts held their breath in very awe. What they were looking at was indeed quite enough to make any one do that. Certainly no such remarkable scene had ever before been "set" since those actual days when Crusaders and Saracens met in mortal combat on the plains of the Holy Land, and knights went forth to battle in joust and tournament wearing a fair lady's glove on their helmet as a talisman for luck.