Petrobey shut up the glass with a happy little sigh. "That will do very nicely," he said to Nicholas. "They will want to entice us and our post on the other side into the plain; but I think we will both of us just stay at home. I don't want to meet those gay cavalry just now, nor yet those two bright guns. We will have breakfast, dear cousin." The bugle sounded for rations, and Petrobey told the men to eat well, "for," said he, "there will be no dinner to-day, I am thinking, but"--and his eye sparkled as he pointed to the enemy--"there will, perhaps, be a little supper." The men grinned, and soon the light-blue smoke went up from a hundred fires where they were making their coffee. Two or three sentries only remained on the walls, who were told to report to Petrobey when the column left the road on which it was marching and turned off either westward towards Valtetzi or eastward towards the post on the opposite hills. He and Nicholas had hardly sat down to breakfast, however, when an orderly ran in saying that the post on the other side of the valley was signalling. Petrobey finished an egg beaten up with sugar and milk before replying. "I am not of the signalling corps, my friend," he said; "let the message be read and brought to me. Some more coffee, Nicholas; it strikes me as particularly good this morning." The message from the signalling body came back in a minute or two. They were merely asking for orders. "Stop where you are," dictated Petrobey, "and watch to see if Turkish reinforcements are coming from Argos. If so, signal here at once. If the troops which have come out of Tripoli turn and attack you, run away, drawing them after you if possible. There will be fighting for us. Pray for your comrades." "And now, dear cousin," he said to Nicholas, when they had finished breakfast, "we will talk, if you please." An hour afterwards an orderly came in to say that the troops had left the road and were making straight towards Valtetzi, and Petrobey got up. "Every one to his post on the walls," he said, "but let no one fire till the word is given. Yanni, take the order to all the captains of the companies." The wall was pierced in all its length with narrow slits for firing, and in half an hour each of these was occupied by four men, two of whom could fire at the same time, while the two behind were employed in reloading their muskets. Outside, the walls were some nine feet high, built on ground which sloped rapidly away in some places at roof angle for two hundred feet, while inside it rose to within five feet of the top of the wall. There a man standing up could see over, and Petrobey took up his place over the gate, where he could watch the troops.