Yet he caught only the sound, not the meaning of their words, so intently did he fix his powers of hearing upon the course taken by the fugitive.  How nimbly and cautiously the agile fellow must move!  He was still in the chasm, yet meanwhile the moon struggled victoriously with the clouds and suddenly her silver disk pierced the heavy black curtain that concealed her from the gaze of men, and her light was reflected like a slender, glittering pillar from the motionless pool of salt-water, enabling the watching Joshua to see what was passing below; but he perceived nothing that resembled a human form.

Had the fugitive encountered any obstacle in the chasm?  Did some precipice or abyss hold him in its gloomy depths?  Had—­and at the thought he fancied that his heart had stopped beating—­Had some gulf swallowed the lad when he was groping his way through the night?

How he longed for some noise, even the faintest, from the ravine!  The silence was terrible.  But now!  Oh, would that it had continued!  Now the sound of falling stones and the crash of earth sliding after echoed loudly through the still night air.  Again the moonlight burst through the cloud-curtain, and Joshua perceived near the pool a living creature which resembled an animal more than a human being, for it seemed to be crawling on four feet.  Now the water sent up a shower of glittering spray.  The figure below had leaped into the pool.  Then the clouds again swallowed the lamp of night, and darkness covered everything.

With a sigh of relief Joshua told himself that he had seen the flying Ephraim and that, come what might, the escaping youth had gained a considerable start of his pursuers.

But the latter neither remained inert nor allowed themselves to be deceived; for though, to mislead them, he had shouted loudly:  “A jackal!” they uttered a long, shrill whistle, which roused their sleeping comrades.  A few seconds later the chief warder stood before him with a burning torch, threw its light on his face, and sighed with relief when he saw him.  Not in vain had he bound him with double ropes; for he would have been called to a severe reckoning at home had this particular man escaped.

But while he was feeling the ropes on the prisoner’s arms, the glare of the burning torch, which lighted him, fell on the fugitive’s rude, deserted couch.  There, as if in mockery, lay the gnawed rope.  Taking it up, he flung it at Joshua’s feet, blew his whistle again and again, and shouted:  “Escaped!  The Hebrew!  Young Curly-head!”

Paying no farther heed to Joshua, he began the pursuit.  Hoarse with fury, he issued order after order, each one sensible and eagerly obeyed.

While some of the guards dragged the prisoners together, counted them, and tied them with ropes, their commander, with the others and his dogs, set off on the track of the fugitive.