e top,
and grasping the rope with both hands, let himself swing free.

As he did so, there came a shout, followed by the sound of scurrying
footsteps. His knuckles scraped against the wall; to protect his hands
he pushed against the wall with his feet, but the result of this was to
throw all his weight on his hands, and his palms were skinned as he slid
rapidly down. The descent was only twenty-four feet. He touched the
ground. Letting the rope go, he plunged down the scarp into the ditch,
rushed across, up the counter-scarp and the glacis, and reached level
ground on the other side. Then a shot flew over his head; he had been
seen. Upright he would form a target, however indistinct, for the sepoys
on the wall, and some of them were no mean marksmen. He dropped on hands
and toes, and thus crawled as fast as he could over the soppy ground.
Shots flew around him, but he escaped them all, and hurrying along until
he judged that he could no longer be seen, he rose to his feet and ran
at full speed across the Circular Road that encompasses the city, over a
stretch of open ground, until he reached the Kudsia Road, and did not
check his pace until he had got half-a-mile from the wall. And then the
rain came down in a blinding torrent, and in five minutes he was
drenched to the skin.

The rain favoured him in one respect--that it would keep people under
cover. On the other hand, it added to the difficulties of his journey.
Even on a clear night he would have found it by no means easy to find
his way. He had nearly two miles to go before he could reach the British
lines, and the ground was dotted with scrub and trees, and with houses
and enclosures, some isolated, some clustered together. Some of the
houses had been occupied before the rising by British officers and civil
servants; they were now, he did not doubt, in the hands of the rebels.
But his only course was to hurry forward, trusting to the good fortune
that had hitherto befriended him.

For half-a-mile he went on across the swampy ground, then found himself
among the walled enclosures. The best way to avoid observation was to
find a lane, such as commonly divided one enclosure from another, and
proceed along that. This he did, and for perhaps another quarter of a
mile trudged on between high walls, the lane winding this way and that,
but leading always, so far as he could judge, in the direction he wished
to go. At length he found himself on open ground again, and now