egarded this as highly favourable to our escape;
for here when rain falls it ceases not for forty-eight hours, and thus
might we count upon the aid of darkness. And that evening as we were
regarding some merchandise in a bazaar, a fellow sidles up to me, and
whispers (fingering a piece of cloth as if he were minded to buy it):

"Does all go well?"

Then perceiving this was Joe Groves, I answered in the same manner:

"All goes well."

"To-morrow at midnight?"

"To-morrow at midnight," I return. Upon which, casting down the cloth,
he goes away without further sign.

And now comes in the feast of Ramadah with a heavy, steady downpour of
rain all day, and no sign of ceasing at sundown, which greatly contented
us. About ten, the house we lodged in being quite still, and our fear of
accident pressing us to depart, we crept silently out into the street
without let or hindrance (though I warrant some spy of Mohand's was
watching to carry information of our flight to his master), and so
through the narrow deserted alleys to the outskirts of the town, and
thence by the river side to the great rock, with only just so much light
as enabled us to hang together, and no more. And I do believe we should
have floundered into the river o' one side of the marsh of canes or
t'other, but that having gone over this road the last time with the
thought that it might lead us to liberty, every object by the way
impressed itself upon my mind most astonishingly.

Here under this rock stood we above an hour with no sound but the
beating of the rain, and the lap of the water running in from the sea.
Then, as it might be about half-past eleven, a voice close beside us
(which I knew for Joe Groves, though I could see no one but us four,
Jack by my side, and Moll bound close to her husband) says:

"All goes well?"

"Yes, all goes well," says I; whereupon he gives a cry like the croak of
a frog, and his comrades steal up almost unseen and unheard, save that
each as he came whispered his name, as Spinks, Davis, Lee, Best, etc.,
till their number was all told. Then Groves, who was clearly chosen
their captain, calls Spinks, Lee, and Best to stand with him, and bids
the others and us to stand back against the canes till we are called. So
we do his bidding, and fall back to the growth of canes, whence we could
but dimly make out the mass of the rock for the darkness, and there
waited breathless, listening for the sound of oars. But these Moors, fo