st
signal!"

From the south came the call of a desert hyena, a long unearthly sound
of laughter.

Amid the hubbub of the Arab camp, the signal was not noticed by the
enemy, but Raal was evidently on the alert, for soon a long wolf howl
answered from the north.

"Good!" cried Dick Oakwood. "Cimbula's little show did not spoil the
big circus, after all. Now Dan, you're going to see a fight."

To the south of the camp a torch flared among the brush. Another was
lighted and another. Soon the place where the Gorols had assembled was
a confusion of dancing lights, flaring and smoking.

A war cry arose among the flames, a shrill cry of "Tahara, Rax!"

"Give 'em the axe!" chuckled Dan. "Atta-boy, Kulki! Now the fun
begins."

A few shots from the Arabs produced an immediate effect among the
torches. They no longer moved, but held their places quietly.

"Get that?" muttered Dick. "Kulki's men stuck their torches in the
ground. Now they must be climbing up the cliffs in the dark."

As the Arab horsemen charged the brush where the torches flamed they
were met by a stinging shower of arrows coming from unseen foes. At
once their cries of "Allah, il Allah," were changed to howls of anger
and shrieks from the wounded. Yet they charged on, shooting at the
torches and driving ahead with flashing scimiters.

But the Gorols were not near the torches and shot more and more arrows
from places of safety.

"Give 'em the axe!" cried Dan. "Here come the Taharans!"

As he spoke, Raal's men raced in open formation upon the disorganized
Arabs, only pausing long enough to discharge a flight of arrows at the
enemy.

Now the Arabs, caught between two attacking troops, were at a loss
which way to face.

Dick, with Dan at his heels, scrambled down from the ledge of the cliff
side and joined the Taharans with the war cry:

"Tahara Rax!"

"Give 'em the axe!" echoed Dan.

"The axe!"

"The axe, the axe!"

The terrifying shouts of the Taharans, charging upon the Arabs, drowned
out the battle cry of, "Allah il Allah."

Hand to hand the Stone-Age men struggled fiercely with the Bedouins,
leaping at them like wild cats, pulling them from their mounts,
swinging their keen-edged hatchets of flint and their short knives of
stone with deadly effect.

All the advantage of gunpowder and horses was lost in that battle in
the dark.

The Arabs fought madly with their swords and daggers, but such weapons
were not much more eff