s look cave-like and offer shelter. Hist!"

He held up his hand, for a trampling sound seemed to come from the face
of the rocks a couple of hundred feet above them, and all involuntarily
turned to gaze up at a spot where the shadows were blackest.

All except Yussuf, who gazed straight onward into the ravine.

It was strange. There was quite a precipice up there, and it was
impossible for people to be walking. What was more strange, there was
the trampling of horses' feet, and then it struck the professor that
they were listening to the echoes of the sounds made by a party some
distance in.

"How lucky!" said Mr Burne. "People coming. We shall get something to
eat."

"Hush, effendi!" said Yussuf sternly. "These may not be friends."

"What?" exclaimed Mr Burne, cocking his gun.

"Yes; that is right, excellencies; look to your arms. If they are
friends there is no harm done. They will respect us the more. If they
are enemies, we must be prepared."

"Stop!" said Mr Preston, glancing at Lawrence. "We must hide or run."

"There is time for neither, effendi," said Yussuf, taking out his
revolver. "They will be upon us in a minute, and to run would be to
draw their fire upon us."

"Run!" exclaimed Mr Burne; "no, sir. As I'm an Englishman I won't run.
If it was Napoleon Bonaparte and his army coming, and these were the
Alps, I would not run now, hungry as I am, and I certainly will not go
for a set of Turkish ragamuffins or Greeks."

"Then, stand firm here, excellencies, behind these stones. They are
mounted; we are afoot."

The little party had hardly taken their places in the shadow cast by a
rock, when a group of horse and footmen came into sight. They were
about fourteen or fifteen in number apparently, some mounted, some
afoot, and low down in that deep gorge the darkness was coming on so
fast that it was only possible to see that they were roughly clad and
carried guns.

They came on at a steady walk, talking loudly, their horses' hoofs
ringing on the stony road, and quite unconscious of anyone being close
beside the path they were taking till they were within some forty yards,
when a man who was in front suddenly caught sight of the group behind
the rocks, checked his horse, uttered a warning cry, and the next moment
ample proof was given that they were either enemies or timid travellers,
who took the party by the rocks for deadly foes.

For all at once the gloomy gorge was lit by the flas