on't get excited.
They will search every stall in the market before a man comes near us,
and besides this is the last place they would look. They will never
suspect us of any intention to scale the wall. Still we must lose no
time," he added. "Now here is a box of shells apiece; put them in your
pockets, buckle these sabers around your waists, take the rifles I
bought. They are better, so you may throw the others away."

"Forbes can't carry one," said Guy. "What shall we do with it?"

"Leave it behind," replied Canaris. "We have burden enough. I had the
Jew put up the stuff in three oilcloth bags. We must divide it into two
loads."

He turned the contents of all on the ground.

"Yes, everything is here," he said. "Crackers, dates, figs, two lamps, a
box of candles, matches, and two flasks of palm oil. Now, then, for the
final move."

He divided the stuff into two bags, and then, going back into the guard
tower, came out with a bunch of long ropes.

"Hurry up," said Guy. "Do you observe how close the sounds are coming?"

"They are searching the market," said Canaris calmly. "They take us for
a party of drunken Arabs out on a lark."

"Then they don't suspect the truth?" asked Guy.

Canaris laughed.

"If it were known that the Emir's English prisoners had escaped," he
said, "the fiends up yonder would be making more noise than the surf
that breaks on the rocks at Bab el Mandeb."

The ropes had at one end a rude iron hook, and, taking one of them,
Canaris threw it over the wall, retaining the other end in his hand.

He pulled it in a yard or two, and then the rope became suddenly taut.
The hook was secure. He took a sharp glance around him, measured with
his ear the hoarse shouts that still rose from the slave market, and
then went nimbly up the rope, hand over hand. He reached the top in
safety.

"Now fasten the stuff on," he whispered down; "put the other ropes in
the bag."

Guy obeyed instructions, and Canaris rapidly drew the string up. He then
speedily hooked a second rope to the wall and dropped it down.

"Fasten Forbes to one rope, and come up the other yourself," he called
out to Chutney.

Here a difficulty arose. Melton was, of course, unable to climb the
rope, and if a noose were slipped under his arms the wound would be torn
and lacerated by the strain.

"It's no use, Chutney," he said. "I foresaw this. You must get off
without me."

Guy was in despair. He was just on the point of bidding