“This ditch is about ten feet deep, and from the bottom of the ditch to the top of that first wall is from five-and-twenty to thirty; between that wall and the higher one inside it is about fifteen feet; and the inner wall is about fifteen feet higher than the outer one; those square towers form junctions between the two walls. Now, we may be quite sure that there are no sentries either on the wall or on the square towers. I don’t suppose there are sentries anywhere except in the batteries on the water-face, but there certainly won’t be here, for they would command a view down into the pasha’s garden; so we may quite conclude that except for the trouble of scaling the walls there is nothing to prevent our getting over. A couple of rope-ladders and one or two twenty-foot planks with bits nailed across them to give a foothold would take us on to the inner wall; then we should need another long ladder to get down into the garden. That would be about thirty-five feet, I should say.”
“Yes, I see all that,” Zaimes, whose face had again become animated as he listened, agreed; “but what would be the good of getting into the pasha’s garden?”
“No good at all, if we were by ourselves, Zaimes, but with Martyn and twenty men from the schooner a good deal of good, I should say. We have only got to make a sudden rush into the house, which will, of course, be open to the garden, seize the pasha, and carry him and some of his wives and children off to the craft that our fellows come in, and then on to the schooner. Then we can send ashore to say that unless the prisoners are sent off in a boat to us by twelve o’clock in the day we shall hang the pasha. Maybe when we get hold of the pasha there will be no occasion to carry him and his women off; the mere threat of it might be enough. We can tell him that it will be painful to us to have to hoist them up to the top of the wall in sacks, but that we shall be obliged to do it unless he signs an order for the prisoners’ release, and sends it off at once by an officer to the jail. A handsome bribe that will enable him to make his peace with his superior at Smyrna may help to quicken his perception.”
Zaimes seized Horace’s hand with fervour, shook it wildly, clasped his hands on his breast, raised them to heaven, and poured forth a stream of exclamations of delight. The quiet habits of many years had been thrown to the winds in a moment, and the excitable Greek nature burst through all restraints. “You have given me new life,” he exclaimed as soon as he had calmed down a little. “Just now there did not seem even a shadow of hope. Now there is a chance that once again I may clasp my brother in my arms. Your plan is difficult, it is dangerous, and yet we may succeed. It is a desperate undertaking, but what is that? I would give my life for my brother, and your sailors would all risk theirs for their comrades.”
“Let us sit down here quietly for a few minutes, Zaimes, and take a good look at these walls. It is evident by the look of this road that it is very little used, and even if anyone did come up they would only think that we had been working in the orange groves behind us and were taking a quiet smoke. It is lucky that there is a moon to-night; it would be an awfully difficult job to get over those walls and into a place we know nothing of if it were a dark night. There will be no difficulty in throwing up a grapnel and getting on to the first wall. The greatest difficulty will be in crossing from that one to the one behind it. Of course with a regular gangway it would be easy enough, but we should not be able to get materials for making one. However, with a couple of stout spars put up a foot apart with ropes between them a foot from each other so as to make ratlings, we could get up, though it wouldn’t be a very easy job passing women down. Still, I hope it won’t come to that. I should think if we capture the pasha and his children, if he has any—and I suppose with half-a-dozen wives he will be sure to have some—we might leave the women alone, though, of course, we should threaten to take them. But I’ll tell you what we shall want, and that is a man who can speak Turkish well, so as to explain exactly to the pasha the fix he is in.”
“Yes, we shall want such a man,” Zaimes agreed.
“Very well, Zaimes, then I think you had better go back to our friend at once. Even if he did mean treachery, he would have taken no steps yet, as he won’t expect us back till the evening if we come at all. Tell him that you want a service of him in which he will run no personal danger—for you know we can dress him up in some of our things, and put a bit of black cloth as a mask half over his face—and that he will be paid twenty pieces of gold for a night’s work. That will be a fortune to him.”
“That will be the best plan,” Zaimes said. “Where shall we meet you?”
“I will go down the hill to the bottom to see what sort of a road there is along the sea, and I will wait there for you. If the road is exposed to the view of the sentries on the batteries at the sea wall we must make our way through the orchards to this point; if not, we will move along there.”
“Do you think that Captain Martyn is sure to be here this evening?”