“Signor Bacri,” said Francisco, examining the straight short weapon handed to him, “I thank thee for all thy kindness to me and my boys—especially for these swords, for assuredly unless thou canst also furnish me with a pair of young and active legs, I am like to have more of fighting than running hereafter. However, let us not waste more time in speech, for, as I have said, my neck already itches most uncomfortably.”
In deference to Francisco’s anxiety to be out of the city, which he was wont to style with great emphasis the Pirates’ Nest, Bacri hastened his preparations, and soon led them to the roof of the house of Jacob Mordecai, from which they scrambled to that of a friendly neighbour, and crossed over, with the care of burglars and the quiet steps of cats, to the other side. Here a difficulty met them, in the shape of a leap which was too long for Francisco’s heavy person to venture.
He might, indeed, have taken it with ease on level ground and in daylight; but, like his son Mariano on a somewhat similar occasion, he felt it difficult to screw up his courage to the point of springing across a black chasm, which he was aware descended some forty or fifty feet to the causeway of the street, and the opposite parapet, on which he was expected to alight like, a bird, appeared dim and ghostly in the uncertain light.
Twice did the courageous man bend himself to the leap, while the blood rushed with apoplectic violence to his bald head; and twice did his spirit fail him at the moment of need!
“Oh, Bacri!” he said in a hoarse whisper, wiping the perspiration from his brow, as he stood on the giddy height, “if there were only a damsel in distress on the opposite side, or a legion of Turks defying me to come on, I could go over, methinks, like a rocket, but to be required to leap in cold blood upon next to nothing over an unfathomable abyss, really—. Hast never a morsel of plank about thee, Jacob?”
Fortunately for all parties, Jacob had a flower stand on his roof, to which he returned with Mariano, who wrenched a plank therefrom, and brought it to the point of difficulty.
After this they met with no serious obstruction. Sometimes descending below the streets and passing through cellars, at others crossing roofs or gliding along the darkest sides of dark walls and passages, they traversed the town without being challenged, and gained the southern wall near the point at which Mariano had crossed it on a former occasion.
Here the Jew bade them God-speed, and left them.
“I hope thou art sure of the road, Mariano?” said Francisco anxiously.
“Trust me, father; I know it well. Only have a care that you tread lightly and make no noise.—Come.”