On getting to the other side, and looking through the crevices between the bamboos, they could make out two figures squatted by the door of one of the houses; and had no doubt that this was the one in which Harry Brooke was confined.
"Now, Meinik, the first thing is for you to go and buy a rope. When the place gets quite quiet, we will make a loop and throw it over the top of the palisade, behind that hut; then I will climb up and let myself down, inside, and then crawl up to the hut and see what is going on there. If my cousin is alone, I will endeavour to speak to him; but of course there may be a guard inside, as well as at the door. If he is very ill, there will probably be a light."
"Let me go, master!"
"No, Meinik, I would rather go myself. I shall be able to judge how he is, if I can catch a sight of him."
[Chapter 13]: Preparing A Rescue.
Stanley remained where he was until Meinik returned, in half an hour, with the rope. Stanley made a loop at one end; and then knotted it, at distances of about a foot apart, to enable him to climb it more easily. Then they waited until the guard fire burnt down low, and most of the men went off into a hut a few yards distant, three only remaining talking before the fire. Then Stanley moved round to the other side of the palisade and, choosing a spot immediately behind the hut where the sentries were posted, threw up the rope. It needed many attempts before the loop caught at the top of one of the bamboos. As soon as it did so, he climbed up.
He found that the position was an exceedingly unpleasant one. The bamboos were all so cut that each of them terminated in three spikes, and so impossible was it to cross this that he had to slip down the rope again. On telling Meinik what was the matter, the latter at once took off his garment and folded it up into a roll, two feet long.
"If you lay that on the top, master, you will be able to cross."
This time Stanley had little difficulty. On reaching the top, he laid the roll on the bamboo spikes; and was able to raise himself on to it and sit there, while he pulled up the rope and dropped it on the inside. Descending, he at once began to crawl towards the hut. As he had seen before climbing, a light was burning within, and the window was at the back of the house. This was but some twenty yards from the palisade and, when he reached it, he stood up and cautiously looked in.
The Indian trooper was seated in a chair, asleep, without his tunic. One arm was bandaged, and a blood-stained cloth was wrapped round his head. On a bamboo pallet, with a dark rug thrown over it, was another figure. The lamp on the wall gave too feeble a light for Stanley to be able to make out whether the figure lying there was Harry, but he had no doubt that it was so.