“May we all prove as faithful and brave as that man!” said Monty, sitting down again, and Kagig cracked his knuckles.

Gloria and I went over and sat at the table, and seeing me in a state to understand things Monty gave me a precis of the situation.

“We’re making a great beacon of this castle,” he said.  “Three hundred men and women are piling in the felled logs and trees and down-wood —­everything that will burn.  We shall need light on the scene.  Rustum Khan has gone to hold the clay ramp and make sure the Turks turn up this castle road.  Fred is to hold the corner; we’ve fortified the Zeitoon side of the road, and Fred and his men are to make sure the Turks don’t spread out through the trees.  Kagig, Will and I, with twenty-five very carefully picked men for each of us, wait for the Turks at the bottom of the road and put up a feint of resistance.  Our business will be to make it look as little like a trap and as much like a desperate defense as possible.  We hope to make it seem we’re caught napping and fighting in the last ditch.”

“Last ditch is true enough!” Fred commented cheerfully.  Fred was obviously in his best humor, faced by a situation that needed no cynicism to discolor it—­full of fight and perfectly contented.

“Practically all of the rest of the men and women who are not watching the enemy on the other side of Beirut Dagh,” Monty went on, “are hidden, or will be hidden in the timber on either side of the road.  We’re hoping to God they’ll have sense enough to keep silent until the beacon is lighted.  You’re to light the beacon, since you’re recovering so finely—­you and Miss Vanderman.”

“Yes, but when?” said I.

“When the bugles blow.  We’ve got six bugles—­”

“Only two of them are cornets and one’s a trombone,” Fred put in.

“And when they all sound together, then set the castle alight and kill any one you see who isn’t an Armenian!”

“Or us!” said Fred.  “You’re asked not to kill one of us!”

“As a matter of fact,” said Monty, “I rather expect to be near you by that time, because we don’t want to give the signal until as many Turks as possible are caught in the road like rats.  At the signal we dose the road at both ends; Rustum Khan and Fred from the bottom end, and we at the top.”

“Most of the murder,” Fred explained cheerfully, “will be done by the women hidden in the trees on either flank.  As long as they don’t shoot across the road and kill one another it’ll be a picnic!”

“How do you know the Turks will walk into the trap?” I asked.

“Ten ‘traitors,’ " said Monty, “have let themselves get caught at intervals since noon.  One of Kagig’s spies has got across to us with news that Mahmoud means to finish the hash of Zeitoon to-night.  His men have been promised all the loot and all the women.”

“Except one!” Fred added with a glance at Gloria.