At the strip of path the canoe made softly to shore and the two young men climbed out, while the Arab remained in the canoe, his single eye peering into the darkness.  This time Billy had provided three stout, but narrow, ladders, constructed of two poles nailed together with occasional cross pieces that gave narrow room for a foot.  He set one of these in place against the wall now, grounding its ends deep in the soft earth, so that it would remain in readiness for any sudden descent.  Then from the top of the wall they reconnoitered the scene before them.

It was very dark.  The garden was full of blotting shadows, and the long wing of the harem lay almost in darkness, with only a faint beam from two adjacent windows to reveal a sign of life.  Those windows were on the third story, next the angle made by the union of the banquet hall and the harem, and Billy’s heart quickened as he recognized the location of the rose room.

“That’s it—­that’s her room,” he whispered excitedly to Falconer.

Falconer stared and nodded.  “I wish that beastly hall wasn’t in the way ahead of us.  I’d like to see what lights are in the windows in that court beyond.”

“We might both go and take a look,” said Billy doubtfully, “but I guess you had better make, straight for your roofs.  It wouldn’t do to have us both nabbed.  Do you hear anything?”

They listened, crouching flat upon the wall, straining their eyes toward the palace.  There was a high wind blowing and above them the leaves of the palm trees were slapping against each other, and below the shrubs and flowers were stirring restlessly.  But the noise of the wind, they felt, was helpful to cover the sounds of their approach.

“Why can’t I make my way around on top of this wall and climb on the roofs from the start?” Falconer questioned, and Billy answered, “I asked her that.  She said it couldn’t be done.  You’d have to climb through some unsafe rubbish.  The best way is down and up again in that angle that she showed me.  Shall we start?”

The same impulse made both men examine their revolvers, then drop them in readiness into their right-hand coat pockets.  They moved along the top of the wall till they reached the angle with the wall on their right, and then they lowered the same knotted rope which Billy had used the night before, but now another rope added to it made it into a rope ladder.  Suspending that over the top of the wall by iron hooks, they slipped down it, each with a pole ladder in his arms, and with another hook of iron they drove the ends down into the earth, so that the rope would not wave out in the wind and either betray them or become displaced.

It was insecure enough, anyway, but they felt it ought to be left in readiness for a flight that might have no second to waste.  Now, with eyes sharply challenging the shadows, they stole along the edge of the palace.

Staring up at the building, Billy stopped.  “Here’s a place a story and a half high—­you could almost climb up by those carvings without any ladder.  And there’s the next higher roof back of it—­and then you must go there to the left.”