"Come on! come on! Don't look," said Barkev. "We have my cousins to save from a like fate." They found the Meneshians in a corner of the Market Place, still keeping the foe at bay. They had the advantage of being, most of them, on horses or on mules; but the density of the hostile crowd, and the number of women and children they had with them, had kept them from breaking through, while they made all the better mark for stones and mud. However, their tormentors were getting tired of a kind of sport which yielded no profit. Rather a pity, when their brethren were looting the well-stocked Armenian shops in the Bazaar! So the crowd soon gave way sufficiently to enable Jack and Barkev to extricate their friends, and they led the terrified party towards the Armenian Quarter. Some were bleeding from the stones that had been thrown at them; all had their clothing torn and disfigured with mud. The children were crying, and two or three of the women were ready to faint. Meanwhile, there was a roar behind them like the roar of many waters, breaking on a rock-bound shore. The mob--the savage mob of an Eastern city--was "_up_." "Death to the Giaours!" was the cry that rose and surged, surged and rose again. The luckless Armenians who had ventured into the Turkish town were fleeing before the storm,--fleeing for their lives, many of them streaming with blood. Would that mob pour on, like sea waves in a storm, into the narrow streets of the Armenian Quarter? Would they slay utterly young and old, men and maidens and little children? No, the weak should not die, if the strong could protect them. Barkev, Kevork, Jack, and other young men sent the rest on before them, and took their stand in a narrow street at the entrance of their Quarter. It bade fair to be a little modern Thermopylæ. Surely neither Greek nor Roman ever fought in a holier cause, or for dearer issues; nor against greater odds, nor with more determined courage. Gabriel, just back from school, came with the rest. Jack sent him for his revolver. "You know where to get it," he said. The others armed themselves, as they could, with sticks and stones. Not another firearm was seen, save this revolver. The Turks had plenty of firearms. With the rabble were mingled regular soldiers, Zaptiehs, Redifs, Hamidiehs, Kourds, all fully armed, all thirsting for blood and plunder. The Armenians could scarcely have held their own had they not had good allies on the flat roofs of their houses. These had all parapets of loose stones, treasuries of effective weapons for the men, the women, and the boys, who flung them down on the heads of the Moslems.