INSTANTLY the city was in a state of orderly commotion. Men rushed hither and thither, each with a set purpose--the knights to don their armour, the commoners to arm themselves and run to their appointed stations on the walls, while the serfs issued through the gates to gather in the corn, which was now fit for the sickle. The latter, although having barely three hours to perform their task, worked so rapidly that when the advance guard of the Moslems appeared in the valley most of the corn had been gathered in. The rest was set on fire, and the serfs retired behind the walls. The five drawbridges were raised and the ponderous gates shut and securely barred, while behind the battlements the citizen army of Croixilia waited in orderly silence the advance of their hereditary foes. On came the Moslem vanguard--mounted men, armed with long guns and spears, resplendent in the barbaric finery of the East. Cymbals and drums crashed in defiance, while under the waving green banners of Islam the fanatical warriors shouted death to the silent soldiers on the walls. Some of the Arabs, in pure bravado, galloped up to the edge of the moat and daringly discharged their weapons at their foes, till a well-directed shower of arrows struck down several and left the rest to ride back with loose rein, still shouting defiance at the Christian warriors. Meanwhile their vanguard dismounted at slightly more than an arrow's flight from the walls, and awaited the rest of the Mohammedan host. To the two lads the spectacle was fascinating, in spite of the possible peril that might ensue. It seemed as if there was no end to the number of the fierce besiegers. Bedouins mounted on horses or on camels, half-naked Baggaras armed with spears and circular hide shields, levies from the wilds of Kordofan and the hilly deserts of the Ahaggar, and negroes from the unconquered deserts of the Western Sudan--men representing all the tribes and nations of northern Africa had forgathered to crush the little, isolated State over which the hated cross of the Christians still floated proudly in the breeze. Meanwhile Reeves had not been idle. Although several cannons had been placed on the walls on all sides, their positions carefully screened from outside observation, he had kept ten pieces in reserve, mounted on travelling carriages. These he had brought round to the probable point of attack, but strict orders had been given that no shot was to be fired until the Englishman himself gave the signal by discharging a cannon with his own hands. True to their traditions to close with the enemy, the Arabs did not wait until their long baggage trains had arrived, but, forming in compact masses, began the attack.