“Yes, everything is here,” he said. “Crackers, dates, figs, two lamps, a box of candles, matches, and two flasks of palm oil. Now, then, for the final move.”
He divided the stuff into two bags, and then, going back into the guard tower, came out with a bunch of long ropes.
“Hurry up,” said Guy. “Do you observe how close the sounds are coming?”
“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.”