But Julia heard the heavy step of the swordsmith approaching, and laying her finger on her lips, she sprang back hastily from the window, and when her gaoler entered, was busy, apparently, in arranging her miserable bed. It was not long that he tarried; for after casting one keen glance around him, to see that all was right; he freed her of his hated presence, taking the torch along with him, and leaving her in utter darkness. As soon as his footstep had died away into silence, she hurried back to the embrasure, and gazed forth earnestly; but the moon had not yet risen, and all the gulf of the ravine and the banks on both sides were black as night, and she could discern nothing. She coughed gently, hoping to attract the attention of her unknown friend, and to learn more of her chances of escape; but no farther sound or signal was made to her; and, after watching long in hope deferred, and anxiety unspeakable, she returned to her sad pallet and bathed her pillow with hot tears, until she wept herself at length into unconsciousness of suffering, the last refuge of the wretched, when they have not the christian’s hope to sustain them. She was almost worn out with anxiety and toil, and she slept soundly, until the blowing of the Roman trumpets in the pass again aroused her; and before she had well collected her thoughts so as to satisfy herself where she was and wherefore, the shouts and groans of a sudden conflict, the rattling of stones and javelins on the tiled roof, the clang of arms, and all the dread accompaniments of a mortal conflict, awoke her to a full sense of her situation. The day lagged tediously and slow. No one came near her, and, although she watched the farther side of the gorge, with all the frantic hope which is so near akin to despair, she saw nothing, heard nothing, but a few wood-pigeons among the leafless tree-tops, but the sob of the torrent and the sigh of the wintry wind. At times indeed the long stern swell of the legionary trumpets would again sound for the assault, and the din of warfare would follow it; but the skirmishes were of shorter and shorter duration, and the tumultuous cheering of the rebels at the close of every onslaught, proved that their defence had been maintained at least, and that the besiegers had gained no advantage. It was, perhaps, four o’clock in the afternoon; and the sun was beginning to verge to the westward, when, just after the cessation of one of the brief attacks—by which it would appear that the besiegers intended rather to harass the garrison and keep them constantly on the alert, than to effect anything decided—the sound of armed footsteps again reached the ears of Julia. A moment afterward, Caius Crispus entered the room hastily, accompanied by Niger and Rufus, the latter bearing in his hand a coil of twisted rope, manufactured from the raw hide of the slaughtered cattle, cut into narrow stripes, and ingeniously interwoven.