It was early on the morning of the 24th of May that the attack was made. At dawn the sentries on the walls of Valtetzi saw a troop of cavalry issue from the southern gate of Tripoli, followed by long columns of infantry, and in a quarter of an hour the camp was humming like swarming bees. Petrobey had established a system of signals with the post on the other side of the valley, but he made no sign to them, for it seemed possible that Achmet, hoping to draw them into the plain, would try to seize the pass they held, which communicated with Argos.
It was a clear blue morning after a cold night, and the troops, defiling from the gate, looked at that distance like lines of bright-mailed insects. First, came the infantry marching in eight separate columns, each containing some five hundred men; next, a long line of baggage-mules, followed by horses pulling two guns; and last, the cavalry on black Syrian horses very gayly caparisoned. Nicholas had an excellent telescope, which he had been given by the captain of an English ship in return for some service, and he and Petrobey watched them until the gates closed again behind.
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.