here was
nothing for it, he decided, but flight.

Yet how could he get away unobserved? There was no exit from the
staircase by the door into the tap-room where Nur-el-Din was, and
to go through the tap-room was to risk coming face to face with
Strangwise.

So Desmond remained where he was by the window and watched.
Presently, the woman turned and began to cross the yard,
Strangwise, carrying his gun, following her. Desmond waited until
he heard a door open somewhere below and then he acted.

Beside the window ran an old lead water-pipe which drained the
roof above his head. On a level with the sill of the landing
below, this pipe took a sharp turn to the left and ran diagonally
down to a tall covered-in water-butt that stood on the flat roof
of an outhouse in the little yard.

Desmond raised the window very gently and tested the pipe with
his hand. It seemed rather insecure and shook under his pressure.
With his eye he measured the distance from the sill to the pipe;
it was about four feet. Desmond reckoned that, if the pipe would
hold, by getting out of the window and hanging on to the sill, he
might, by a pendulum-like motion, gain sufficient impulse to
swing his legs across the diagonally-running pipe, then transfer
his hands and so slide down to the outhouse roof.

He wasted no time in debating the chances of the pipe collapsing
under his weight. All his life it had been his practice to take a
risk, for such is the Irish temperament--if the object to be
attained in any way justified it; and he was determined to avoid
at all costs the chance of a meeting with Strangwise. The latter
had probably read the name of Okewood in that morning's casualty
list, but Desmond felt more than ever that he distrusted the man,
and his continued presence in the neighborhood of Nur-el-Din
gravely preoccupied him.

He stood a moment by the open window and listened. The murmur of
voices went on in the taproom, but from another part of the house
he heard a deep laugh and knew it to be Strangwise's. Trusting to
Providence that the roof of the outhouse would be out of sight of
the yard door, Desmond swung his right leg over the window-sill
and followed it with the other, turning his back on the yard. The
next moment he was dangling over the side of the house.

Then from the yard below he heard Strangwise call:

"Rufus! Rufus!"

A heavy footstep sounded on the flags. Desmond remained perfectly
still. The strain on his arms was