Things were going well with the revolutionists, they learned. The Janissaries, numbering 5,000, so far had failed to take the field against them, for what reason was not known. In the meantime, Captain Amanassar was rallying the sturdy peasants of the valleys and plateaus and the herders of the mountains to his standard. He had advanced twenty miles into the mountains in three days and already a force of fifteen hundred men had assembled. He lay at the village of Sharpath, on a high plateau, well guarded against surprise, and intended to maintain this position for a week or more while the countrymen continued to come in. Sharpath, the boys were told, stood in the center of a broad plateau comprising one of the richest agricultural districts of the mountain country and the road approaching it from Athensi, along which the Janissaries would have to move to attack, passed through a deep gorge which already was in possession of the revolutionists. “All right for them,” muttered Frank. “But the longer they stay there, the nearer draws the day of the Sacrificial Games. I’m worried about Bob, Jack, and I want to do something. Can’t you put your mind on it. I’ve been thinking of ways and means until I feel as if I were growing insane.” Frank was seated at the table on which the radio sending apparatus had been set up in the little grove off the Great Road where originally they had taken shelter. When surprised by the revolutionists he and Jack had left their work of putting the radio into shape uncompleted. Since their return they had been wandering over the ruins of Korakum for two days without again thinking of the radio, lost in admiration of this ancient city—the oldest, undoubtedly, in the world. Only a few of the buildings had survived the ravages of thousands of years, here a temple, there a palace. They jutted up among the vegetable gardens of the exiles, and, when the boys expressed to Horeb their surprise at not finding even a trace of other ruins, he shrugged and smiled. “The houses of the common people were not builded of enduring materials,” he said. “It is so in Athensi today. The common people live in mud huts with wattled walls and thatched roofs, little better than those of African savages. But the temples and palaces of Athensi, ah!” He made a gesture indicative of his despair at attempting to characterize them. “Some day soon, I hope, you shall see for yourselves,” he added. “And it was so in Korakum. These temples and palaces, as you can see, were built of granite hewn from the mountains, and are of immense solidity. Even they have fallen into ruins now, as you see, for this city was founded a full thousand years before the first of our people entered Egypt.