“Prisoners escaping,” I said quietly.
“But they are not so near as that. They were confined in the next room but one,” he said in a whisper.
“Broke through, then,” I said.
Then we went—Captain Dyer and I—quietly up on to the roof, answered the challenge, and then walked to the edge, where, leaning over, we could hear the dull grating noise once more; then a stone seemed to fall out on to the sandy way by the palace walls.
It was all plain enough: they had broken through from one room to another, where there was a window no bigger than a loophole, and they were widening this.
“Quick, here, sentry,” says the captain.
The next minute the sentry hurried up, and we had a man posted as nearly over the window as we could guess, and then I had my orders in a minute: “Take two men and the sentry at their door, rush in, and secure them at once. But if they have got out, join Sergeant Williams, and follow me to act as reserve, for I am going to make a sally by the gate to stop them from the outside.”
I roused Harry Lant and Measles, and they were with me in an instant. We passed a couple of sentries, and gave the countersign, and then mounted to the long stone passage which led to where the prisoners had been placed.
As we three privates neared the door, the sentry there challenged; but when we came up to him and listened, there was not a sound to be heard, neither had he heard anything, he said. The next minute the door was thrown open, and we found an empty room; but a hole in the wall shewed us which way the prisoners had gone.
We none of us much liked the idea of going through that hole to be taken at a disadvantage, but duty was duty, and running forward, I made a sharp thrust through with my piece in two or three directions; then I crept through, followed by Harry Lant, and found that room empty too; but they had not gone by the doorway which led into the women’s part, but enlarged the window, and dropped down, leaving a large opening—one that, if we had not detected it then, would no doubt have done nicely for the entrance of a strong party of enemies.