The first day was uneventful, but as the second began to dawn on the heights one of the pickets, a boy of fourteen, rushed into camp with the news that the Turks were entering the little valley in which the insurgents were camped. The boy had hardly delivered this news when a picket from the summit of the ridge to the east rushed in breathless, and announced that soldiers were climbing the slope on his side. And from various other points soon came sentries with similar information. The insurgents were about their chief in an instant to hear his command. Sarafoff had studied the lie of the land overnight, and it required but a moment for him to decide upon his plan of battle. The band were occupying the base of a narrow ‘dip,’ one end of which was closed by an insurmountable wall of sheer stone, and the other now blocked by probably two hundred Turkish soldiers. Another body of Turks, perhaps three hundred strong, were already coming over one of the two mountain crests. The other slope--the only way of escape open to the band--was so steep as to be impossible of ascent except by aid of the low bush that covered it. The surprise was complete, and the trap was tight. There was a huge rock, lodged half-way up the open mountain-side, which would offer some protection. Sarafoff picked eight men from his band and started for this boulder, leaving the others, in charge of a lieutenant, to lie low in the bushes until he and his party attained the eminence. By climbing fast and taking the shelter of the shrubs, the nine men got to the rock with the loss of but one of their number. Not until then did they return the fire of the Turks, now descending the opposite slope. As soon as the main body of the band heard the fire of their comrades, they scattered, and started to pick their way up around the rock to the summit of the peak. It took them two hours to make the ascent, and during this time some of the Turks wound around to the right of Sarafoff’s position on the boulder, and a few got far above him to his left. Between these two raking fires the place would have been untenable had not the insurgents above kept these parties of Turks replenishing their numbers every minute. When the Turks succeeded in picking off three more of Sarafoff’s men, leaving him now but four--though all of the other insurgents had not yet reached the point of the peak--he vacated the boulder. The four men scattered, as the others had done, and scurried up the ascent. All five succeeded in gaining the little fort at the top, and, without waiting to take breath, dropped beside the main body, and took up the fusillade which these had already begun.