Guy took a hasty glance at the roofs and battlements spread before them on one side, the moonlit landscape on the other, and then he whispered down, "All right, Melton?"
"Yes, go ahead," came the faint reply.
"Quick, they are coming!" cried Canaris in sudden excitement, and as he spoke a yell went up close at hand, and three or four dark figures turned the corner of the nearest slave-prison.
A big Somali was in the lead, and, spying Melton, he raised his spear.
"You fiend!" cried Guy, and, lifting a loose stone from the wall, he hurled it down.
It struck the spear from the rascal's hand, and, before he could recover himself, Guy and Canaris had dragged Melton to the top of the wall by a prodigious effort.
"Down, down!" cried Canaris, and as they crouched low three or four spears went over their heads and a hoarse shout of rage went up from the baffled Somalis that was caught up and repeated far back into the town.
"Keep cool," cautioned Canaris; "the ropes are up; they can't reach us. Five minutes more, and——" The words froze on his lips. Loud above the shouts of the savages rose a harsh, metallic sound that vibrated in shuddering echoes through the night air. It was the beating of the tomtom at the Emir's palace.
An electric circuit could not have more speedily roused the town. A vast, sullen roar went up instantly, and then, mingled with the clang of the tomtom and the tumult of the people, rang out a harsh rattle of alarm-drums that swelled and spread until every oval watch-turret on the town walls was sounding the tocsin announcing to the subjects of Rao Khan the escape of the hated Englishmen.