returned Feversham. "The preparations are made.
There are camels waiting in the desert ten miles west of Omdurman."

"Now?" exclaimed Trench. "Now?"

"Yes, man, now. There are rifles and ammunition buried near the camels,
provisions and water kept in readiness. We travel by Metemneh, where
fresh camels wait, from Metemneh to Berber. There we cross the Nile;
camels are waiting for us five miles from Berber. From Berber we ride in
over the Kokreb pass to Suakin."

"When?" exclaimed Trench. "Oh, when, when?"

"When I have strength enough to sit a horse for ten miles, and a camel
for a week," answered Feversham. "How soon will that be? Not long,
Trench, I promise you not long," and he rose up from the ground.

"As you get up," he continued, "glance round. You will see a man in a
blue linen dress, loitering between us and the gaol. As we came past
him, he made me a sign. I did not return it. I shall return it on the
day when we escape."

"He will wait?"

"For a month. We must manage on one night during that month to escape
from the House of Stone. We can signal him to bring help. A passage
might be made in one night through that wall; the stones are loosely
built."

They walked a little farther and came to the water's edge. There amid
the crowd they spoke again of their escape, but with the air of men
amused at what went on about them.

"There is a better way than breaking through the wall," said Trench, and
he uttered a laugh as he spoke and pointed to a prisoner with a great
load upon his back who had fallen upon his face in the water, and
encumbered by his fetters, pressed down by his load, was vainly
struggling to lift himself again. "There is a better way. You have
money?"

"Ai, ai!" shouted Feversham, roaring with laughter, as the prisoner half
rose and soused again. "I have some concealed on me. Idris took what I
did not conceal."

"Good!" said Trench. "Idris will come to you to-day or to-morrow. He
will talk to you of the goodness of Allah who has brought you out of the
wickedness of the world to the holy city of Omdurman. He will tell you
at great length of the peril of your soul and of the only means of
averting it, and he will wind up with a few significant sentences about
his starving family. If you come to the aid of his starving family and
bid him keep for himself fifteen dollars out of the amount he took from
you, you may get permission to sleep in the zareeba outside the prison.
Be content with