"Will you go first, Ryan, or shall I?" Terence said.
"Just as you like."
"Well, then, you may as well go, as then I can talk with this good fellow till it is my turn."
Ryan shook the soldier's hand heartily, took hold of the rope, slung himself over the parapet, and began the descent. Terence and the soldier leaned over, and watched him until they could no longer make out the figure with certainty. As soon as the tension on the rope slackened, Terence grasped Jacques' hand, said a few more words of thanks, and then followed his companion. As soon as he reached the ground he shook the rope and, a minute later, it fell on the ground beside him.
He coiled it up, and then they started down the street. Following the instructions that they had received, in ten minutes they reached the end of the lane.
"We were to throw away the rope, were we not?" Ryan said.
"Yes, but now we are here, there can be no use in our doing so. If a length of rope were found lying in the road, people would wonder who had thrown it away; besides, it is a good stout piece of new rope, and may be of use to the fisherman."
Counting the doors carefully as they went along, they came to the twelfth where, before they reached it, the red glow from a pipe showed that a man was standing outside.
"It is a dark night, mate," Terence said in a low tone, as he came up to him.
"That is right," the man replied; "come in."