“We could never have held the place without Rustum Khan,” said Monty.  “As it is we’ve a chance.  The last thing the Turks will expect from us is mounted tactics.  Allowing for plenty of spare horses, we shall have two full squadrons—­one under Rustum Khan, and one I’ll lead myself.  From all accounts they’re bringing an awful number of men against us, and we expect them to try to force the clay ramp.  In that case—­but come and see.”

He led on up-hill, and after a few minutes the well-worn track disappeared, giving place to a newly cleared one.  Trees had been cut down roughly, leaving stumps in such irregular profusion that, though horses could pass between them easily, no wheeled traffic could have gone that way.  The undergrowth and the tree-trunks had been piled along either side, so that the new path was fenced in.  It was steep and crooked, every section of it commanded by some other section higher up, with plenty of crags and boulders that afforded even better cover than the trees.

“Discovered this the first day I got here,” said Monty.  “Asked about bears, and a man offered to show me where a dozen of them lived.  I was curious to see where a ’dozen bears could live in amity together —­didn’t believe a word of it.  We set out that afternoon, and didn’t reach the top until midnight.  Worst climb I ever experienced.  Lost ourselves a hundred times.  Next day, however, Kagig agreed to let me have as many men as could be crowded together to work, and I took a hundred and twenty.  Set them to cutting this trail and another one.  They worked like beavers.  But come along and look.”

“How about the bears?” Fred demanded.  “Did you get them?”

“Smelt ’em.  Saw one—­or saw his shadow, and heard him.  Followed him up-hill by the smell, and so found the castle wall.  Haven’t seen a bear since.”

“Hssh!” said Kagig, and sprang up-hill ahead of us to take the lead.  “There are guards above there, and they are true Zeitoonli—­they will shoot dam’ quick!”

They did not shoot, because we all lay in the shadow of a great rock as soon as we could see a ragged stone wall uplifted against the purple sky, and Kagig whistled half a dozen times.  We plainly heard the snap of breech-blocks being tested.

“They are weary of talking fight!” Kagig whispered.

But the sixth or seventh whistle was answered by a shout, and we began to climb again.  Close to the castle the tree-cutters had been able to follow the line of the original road fairly closely, and there were places underfoot that actually seemed to have been paved.  Finally we reached a steep ramp of cemented stone blocks, not one of which was out of place, and went up that toward an arch—­clear, unmistakable, round Roman that had once been closed by a portcullis and an oak gate.  All of the woodwork had long ago disappeared, but there was little the matter with the masonry.

Under the echoing arch we strode into a shadowy courtyard where the sun had not penetrated long enough to warm the stones.  In the midst of it a great stone keep stood as grim and almost as undecayed as when Crusaders last defended it.  That castle had never been built by Crusaders; they had found it standing there, and had added to it, Norman on to Roman.