"What is to be done, Yussuf?" continued the professor. "If we make a
stout resistance, shall we beat them off?"

"No, effendi," said Yussuf sadly; "it is impossible. We might kill
several, but they are many, and those who are left do not value life.
Besides, effendi, some of us must fall."

"What are these people, then?"

"Brigands--robbers, excellency."

"Brigands and robbers in the nineteenth century!" cried Mr Burne
angrily; "it is absurd."

"In your country, excellency; but here they are as common as they are in
Greece."

"But the law, sir, the law!" cried Mr Burne. "Confound the scoundrels!
where are the police?"

Yussuf shrugged his shoulders.

"We are far beyond the reach of the law or the police, excellency,
unless a little army of soldiers is sent to take or destroy these
people; and even then what can they do in these terrible fastnesses,
where the brigands have hiding-places and strongholds that cannot be
found out, or if found, where they can set the soldiery at defiance?"

Mr Burne blew his nose again fearfully, and created a series of echoes
that sounded as if old men were blowing their noses from where they
stood right away to Constantinople, so strangely the sounds died away in
the distance.

"Then why, sir, in the name of common sense and common law, did you
bring us into this out-of-the-way place, among these dirty, ragged,
unshaven scoundrels? It is abominable! It is disgraceful! It is--"

"Hush! hush! Burne; be reasonable," said the professor. "Yussuf has
only obeyed orders. If anyone is to blame it is I, for I wished to see
this ruined fastness of the old Roman days."

Yussuf smiled, and gave the professor a grateful look.

"Humph! It's all very well for you to take his part. He ought to have
known," grumbled the old lawyer.

"Travellers are never free from risk in any of the out-of-the-way parts
of the country," said Yussuf quietly.

"And of course we knew that, and accepted the risk," said the professor.
"Come, come, Burne, be reasonable. Yussuf is not to blame. The
question is, What are we to do--fight or give up?"

"Fight," said Mr Burne fiercely. "Hang it all, sir! I never give in
to an opponent. I always say to a client, if he has right upon his
side, `Fight, sir, fight.' And that's what I'm going to do."

"Fight, eh?" said the professor gravely.

"Yes, sir, fight, and I only wish I understood the use of this gun and
long knife as well as I do that o