When his turn arrived, the sentry took up the word, but it was a thin quavering call that barely reached the next man a hundred yards away.

While this brief struggle had been going on, a light figure within the shed had mounted to the rafters and, gently feeling for and twisting round a couple of wooden pins, handed down to his companions below a section of the roof some two feet square, which had been kept in its place only by these temporary supports.  The wood was placed silently on the floor.  Then the figure above crawled out upon the roof, and let himself down by the aid of a rope held by the two Biluchis within.

It was a pitch-dark night; nothing broke the blackness save the scattered points of light from the sentries’ lanterns.  Stepping to the side of the half-garroted Maratha, who was leaning passively against the shed, the sinewy hand of the Gujarati still pressing upon his windpipe, Desmond thrust a gag into his mouth and with quick deft movements bound his hands.  Now he had cause to thank the destiny that had made him Bulger’s shipmate; he had learned from Bulger how to tie a sailor’s knot.

Scarcely had he bound the sentry’s hands when he was joined by one of his fellow prisoners, and soon seven of them stood with him in the shadow of the shed.  The last man, the Gujarati, had held the rope while the Babu descended.  There was no one left to hold the rope for him, but he swung himself up to the roof and climbed down on the shoulders of one of the Biluchis.  Meanwhile the sentry, whose lantern had been extinguished and from the folds of whose garments its flint and tinderbox had been taken, had now been completely trussed up, and lay helpless and perforce silent against the wall of the shed.  From the time when the hapless man first felt the grip of the Gujarati upon his throat scarcely five minutes had elapsed.

Now the party of nine moved in single file, swiftly and silently on their bare feet, under the wall of the fort toward the northeast bastion, gliding like phantoms in the gloom.  Each man bore his burden:  the Babu carried the dark lantern; one of the Marathas the coil of rope; the other the sentry’s matchlock and ammunition; several had small bundles containing food, secreted during the past three days from their rations.

Suddenly the leader stopped.  They had reached the foot of the narrow flight of steps leading up into the bastion.  Just above them was a sentinel.  The pause was but for a moment.  The plan of action had been thought out and discussed.  On hands and knees the Gujarati crept up the steps; at his heels followed Desmond in equal stealth and silence.  At the top, hardly distinguishable from the blackness of the sky, the sentinel was leaning against the parapet, looking out to sea.  Many a night had he held that post, and seen the stars, and listened to the rustle of the surf; many a night he had heard the call of the sentry next below, and passed it to the man on the bastion beyond; but never a night had he seen anything but the stars and the dim forms of vessels in the harbor, heard anything but the hourly call of his mates and the eternal voice of the sea.