154 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
in less than half an hour, the confident assailants 
mounted the road to the eastern gate, and applied 
their newly-made engine to the iron door. The 
vaulted chamber resounded loudly with the blow, 
and the rattling and confused clatter of cavalry in 
motion, was immediately heard within. Another 
and another blow succeeded, and the massive doors 
rolled back as if by magic, leaving to them a clear 
undisputed passage to the interior. Three or four 
troopers, the tail, as it were, of the flying banditti, 
dashed hastily through the opposite gate, which im- 
mediately closed behind them with a terrible report, 
awaking a thousand thunders from the rocky sides 
and roof, which echoed and re-echoed round, till the 
very foundations of the vaulted chamber trembled 
sensibly. The startled soldiers who had entered soon 
regained their confidence, and advanced to the second 
door, which they found so firmly closed, that their 
utmost manual efforts could not move or even shake 
it ; yet neither bolt nor bar was visible. They speedily 
applied the battering-ram, expecting, no doubt, as 
little resistance as before ; but they dealt stroke after 
stroke with increased force, without producing any 
effect, except the effect of a very great noise, for the 
successive blows rang through the vaulted chamber, 
in a confusion of multiplied vibrations almost deafening. 
During the delay caused by this obstruction, the 
whole body of Dherm-ben-Nassuk’s force had filed 
into the cave ; and all, except those who were im- 
