Part 17 (1/2)

It was opened much sooner and more violently than he had antic.i.p.ated, and a tall man springing out seized him by the throat in a grasp like a vice, and held a gleaming dagger to his breast.

In other circ.u.mstances Mariano would certainly have engaged in a struggle for the dagger, but remembering Angela and the Jew's warning, he gave back, and said in French, as well as the vice-like grip would allow--

”A friend.”

”Truly,” replied the man gruffly, in Lingua Franca, ”thy knock might imply friends.h.i.+p, but thine appearance here at such an hour requires more explanation than a mere a.s.surance.”

”Remove your hand and you shall have it,” replied the youth, somewhat angrily. ”Dost suppose that if I had been other than a friend I would not have ere now flung thee headlong from thine own terrace?”

”Speak quickly, then,” returned the man, relaxing his hold a little.

”This ring,” said the youth.

”Ha! Enough, a sure token,” interrupted the Jew, in a low friendly tone, on seeing the ring, at the same time leading Mariano within the doorway. ”What wouldst thou?”

”Nothing more than to be shown the nearest way to the street.”

”That is soon done--follow me.”

In a few minutes Mariano found himself in a narrow street, down which, after lighting his lantern and thanking the Jew, he proceeded at a rapid pace.

In the intricacies of that curious old town the youth would certainly have lost himself, but for the fact that it was built, as we have said, on the slope of a hill, so that all he had to do was to keep descending, in order to secure his final exit into the princ.i.p.al thoroughfare-- Bab-Azoun.

Few persons met him at that hour, and these appeared desirous of avoiding observation. After pa.s.sing the Bagnio with a shudder, he extinguished the lantern. And now the real danger of his enterprise had begun, because he was acting illegally in traversing the streets after dark without a light, and liable to be taken up and punished by any of the guards who should find him. He proceeded therefore with great caution; keeping close to the walls in the darkest places, and gliding into doorways to hide when any one approached. Thus he succeeded escaping observation, and had almost reached the city wall, not far from the spot where it was garnished by poor Castello's head, when he heard the tramp of soldiers. They were about to turn a corner which would in another second have brought him full into view. To retreat was impossible, and no friendly doorway stood open to receive him. In this extremity he pressed himself into a niche formed by a pillar and an angle of the house beside him. It could not have concealed him in ordinary circ.u.mstances, but aided by darkness there was some possibility of escaping notice. Crus.h.i.+ng himself against the wall with all his might, and wis.h.i.+ng with all his heart that he had been a smaller man, he breathlessly awaited the pa.s.sing of the soldiers.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

IN WHICH TED FLAGGAN AND HIS FRIEND RAIS ALI ACT A CONSCIOUS PART, AND A POLITICAL STORM BEGINS TO BREAK.

There is unquestionably many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, but on the present occasion there was no such slip. Mariano succeeded in diminis.h.i.+ng and flattening himself to such an extent that the janissaries pa.s.sed without observing him. The moment they were out of sight he glided from his hiding-place, and soon found his way to the top of the ramparts, near the Bab-Azoun gate. The head of Castello was at his elbow; the wearied Turkish sentinel was not a hundred yards distant Mariano could see him clearly defined against the eastern sky every time he reached the end of his beat.

”If he takes it into his head to walk this way, I am lost,” thought Mariano.

It seemed as if the man had heard the thought, for he walked slowly towards the spot where the youth lay at full length on the ground.

There was no mound or niche or coping of any kind behind which a man might conceal himself. The dead man's head was the only object that broke the uniformity of the wall. In desperation, Mariano lay down with it between himself and the advancing sentinel, and crept close to it--so close that while he lay there he fancied that a drop of something cold fell from it and mingled with the perspiration that stood in large beads upon his brow!

The sentinel stopped just as Mariano was preparing to spring upon and endeavour to strangle him. He looked earnestly and long in the direction of the dead man's head, as if in meditation on its owner's untimely fate, or, possibly, on the unusual length and solidity of the shadow that tailed away from it!

Fortunately he advanced no further, but, turning on his heel, walked slowly away. Just then the moon shot forth a ray of light from the midst of the cloud that had covered it, as if to cheer the fugitive on his desperate adventure. Instead of cheering, however, it alarmed him, and expedited his movements.

In a moment Mariano put a loop of his rope over the head and drew it tight on the spike close to the masonry. Another moment and he was over the parapet, down the wall, and into the ditch. Here again unusual caution was needful, but the youth's cat-like activity enabled him to overcome all obstacles. In a few minutes he was speeding over the Sahel hills in the direction of Frais Vallon.

We need scarcely say that wind and muscle were tried to their uttermost that night. In an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time he reached the gate of the consul's garden, which stood open, and darted in.

Now it chanced that night that the stout British seaman, Ted Flaggan, lay in a hammock suspended between two trees in a retired part of the consul's garden, the weather being so warm that not only he but several of the other domestics had forsaken their dwellings during the night, and lay about the grounds in various contrivances more or less convenient, according to the fancy or mechanical apt.i.tude of the makers thereof.

Flaggan had, out of pure good-will, slung a primitive hammock similar to his own between two trees near him for his friend Rais Ali, in which the valiant Moor lay sound asleep, with his prominent brown nose pointing upwards to the sky, and his long brown legs hanging over the sides. Ted himself lay in a wakeful mood. He had fought unsuccessfully for some hours against a whole army of mosquitoes, and now, having given in, allowed the savage insects to devour him unchecked.

But the poor victim found it difficult to lie awake and suffer without occupation of any kind; he therefore arose and cut from a neighbouring hedge a light reed which was long enough to reach from his own hammock to that of his friend. With the delicate end of this, while reclining at his ease, he gently tickled Rais Ali's nose.