"They are searching the market," said Canaris calmly. "They take us for a party of drunken Arabs out on a lark."
"Then they don't suspect the truth?" asked Guy.
Canaris laughed.
"If it were known that the Emir's English prisoners had escaped," he said, "the fiends up yonder would be making more noise than the surf that breaks on the rocks at Bab el Mandeb."
The ropes had at one end a rude iron hook, and, taking one of them, Canaris threw it over the wall, retaining the other end in his hand.
He pulled it in a yard or two, and then the rope became suddenly taut. The hook was secure. He took a sharp glance around him, measured with his ear the hoarse shouts that still rose from the slave market, and then went nimbly up the rope, hand over hand. He reached the top in safety.
"Now fasten the stuff on," he whispered down; "put the other ropes in the bag."
Guy obeyed instructions, and Canaris rapidly drew the string up. He then speedily hooked a second rope to the wall and dropped it down.
"Fasten Forbes to one rope, and come up the other yourself," he called out to Chutney.
Here a difficulty arose. Melton was, of course, unable to climb the rope, and if a noose were slipped under his arms the wound would be torn and lacerated by the strain.