position,
then his arms dropped.

"They have gone into the guard room to sleep," he said; "there are two
less to trouble you."

Then he turned towards the group of men by the fire and fixed his gaze
upon them. In a short time one of them wrapped himself in his cloth and
lay down. In five minutes two others had followed his example. Another
ten minutes passed, and then Rujub turned to Bathurst and said, "I
cannot affect the other three; we cannot influence everyone."

"That will do, Rujub, it is my turn now."

After a short search they found stairs leading down from the terrace,
and after passing through some empty rooms reached a door opening into
the courtyard.

"Do you stay here, Rujub," Bathurst said. "They will take me for one of
themselves. If I succeed without noise, I shall come this way; if not,
we will go out through the gate, and you had best leave by the way we
came."

The door was standing open, and Bathurst, grasping a heavy tulwar, went
out into the courtyard. Keeping close to the house, he sauntered along
until he reached the grated windows of the prison room. Three lamps were
burning within, to enable the guard outside to watch the prisoners. He
passed the two first windows; at the third a figure was standing. She
shrank back as Bathurst stopped before it.

"It is I, Miss Hannay--Bathurst. Danger threatens you, and you must
escape at once. Rabda is waiting for you outside. Please go to the door
and stand there until I open it. I have no doubt that I shall succeed,
but if anything should go wrong, go and lie down again at once."

Without waiting for an answer, he moved towards the fire.

"Is that you, Ahmed?" one of the warders said. "We all seem sleepy this
evening, there is something in the air; I felt half inclined to go off
myself."

"It is very hot tonight," Bathurst replied.

There was something in his voice unfamiliar to the man, and with an
exclamation, "Who is it?" he sprang to his feet. But Bathurst was now
but three paces away, and with a bound was upon him, bringing the tulwar
down with such force upon his head that the man fell lifeless without a
groan. The other two leaped up with shouts of "Treachery!" but Bathurst
was upon them, and, aided by the surprise, cut both down after a sharp
fight of half a minute. Then he ran to the prison door, turned the key
in the lock, and opened it.

"Come!" he exclaimed, "there is no time to be lost, the guards outside
have taken the alarm,"