Thoroughly scared now by the anger of the foreign officer, whom he imagined to be doing service with the Turkish army, and conscious that by making captures and failing to report he had been guilty of a serious offence, the man upon whom Dick, with his unblushing cheek and wonderful assurance and resource, had so completely turned the tables proceeded to obey his orders with a meekness which was apparent. In fact, he was obviously anxious to appease the anger of this officer, and so escape punishment for his remissness. "Follow, sir," he said. "There are three prisoners as I have told you, and it may be that when you see how ready I am to act on your orders, you will forget the fact that I failed to send a report, remembering too, that the times are very unsettled." They were that without a doubt, for all this while the distant rattle of musketry could be heard, rolling round the defences, now breaking out here with a severity which showed that an attack was probably being forced home, perhaps even at the point of the bayonet, and then dying down quite suddenly only to break out with virulence in another direction. And every now and again, sometimes very frequently, at others after quite a lull, heavy guns would open, shells would scream through the air, and rarely now one of the monsters would drop into the streets of the city or plunge amongst the houses, when the succeeding explosion would be followed by heartrending shrieks, by piercing cries, by the anguished calls of the helpless and defenceless. Yes, the times were unsettled enough; Dick had his own troubles and could therefore sympathize. He bade the man hasten, and followed into the guard-house. "And there was good reason for making these men prisoners," said the Turk, pushing his fez to the back of his head and turning to our hero, still with the hope that he might excuse his own breach of the standing orders of the army. "I will tell you. One, a big man----" "Yes, a big man," said Dick eagerly. "The Major without a doubt," he told himself. "A big man, and fat, very." "Ah! Fat! Then that cannot be the Major. Get along with it," cried Dick peevishly, his hopes wrecked in a moment. "Fat and big," went on the man. "We saw him in converse with some of the stragglers who had left the lines of trenches. He was inciting them to stay away." "Or to return to their duty, which?" asked Dick curtly. "The former, we thought," came the answer. "We arrested him. He was angry and shouted and threatened; but since he could speak only a few words of our language we could not understand the cause of his anger. Then there were two others, foreigners." "Ah! Describe them," Dick almost shouted. It was hard indeed at this moment to restrain his eagerness. "One, tall, and spare, and like a soldier." "The Major," Dick told himself. "Hooray! Things are going to come right." "And the other older, getting grey, also tall, and spare, and soldierly."