The house next the rampart had an iron stair leading to the upper story and the roof. Mansoor, followed by Jacques, swarmed up these stairs, reached the roof, reached the ramparts and dropped over into the encircling ditch.
Mansoor made the drop fifteen seconds only before Jacques. It was thirty feet and they ought both to have been killed, but we may fancy that the gods like a bit of sport sometimes, for they weren't.
But the Arab recovered from the shake-up of the fall before his pursuer had done likewise, and from the start at the ditch's edge for the race for freedom Jacques was under a half-minute handicap.
Half a minute is a terribly long time when the energy of life is blazing to a point as in battle, or a pursuit like this. It gave Mansoor time to get well away.
Just here, around the walls of Sidi-bel-Abbès, you will find vineyards stretching southward and breaking up at last into market gardens. Mansoor was making his way between two vineyards down a path that ended in a cul-de-sac.
A fence, in fact, ended the path and barred his way and checked it for a moment. He left it broken behind him and struck across a market garden where long lines of bell glasses glowed in the light of the moon. In the grape season all this place would be watched by the grape growers and by this a hue and cry might have been set up and half a dozen unsolicited helpers spoiling Jacques' game, but at this time of year the place was deserted and the pursued and the pursuer had the ground to themselves.
The time taken by Mansoor in breaking through the fence gave Jacques an advantage, for the break was so thorough that he was able to get through without delay; when he was through, Mansoor, at the other end of the garden, was negotiating the fence on that side.
Beyond lay broken ground, spotted here and there with stunted bushes and cacti.
When Jacques reached this place, Mansoor was far ahead but distinctly visible, and he had altered his pace. He was no longer running as if for his life, he had settled down to a jog-trot, and Jacques, after a spurt that lessened the distance between them by a quarter, held himself in and settled down to the pace of Mansoor.
The man who holds the lead in an affair of this kind holds the advantage, for the pursuer, if he overhauls the pursued, must inevitably come up to the scratch winded.