Full of renewed hope, I looked out of the window into the Eastern evening, and speculated on what the god of chance might do for us. To be effective he would have to do a lot. There was, for example, the Austrian sentry whom I could see below, leaning against a motor lorry. If he were about, on whatever night we fixed for our escape, how could we climb down to the ground unobserved? The window itself offered no difficulties, for it was above the street and on the first floor, so that a few bedclothes tied together would suffice to lower a man out of the barracks. Then, while I was still watching the sentry, a different god intervened. A hooded girl sidled up to him, and after looking around to see that nobody was watching, he crossed the road, and disappeared with her into the meadow to the left of the camp. An omen, I thought. If, on escape-night, chance spirited away obstacles as easily as that, all would be well. Meanwhile the flat, gray houses whitened in the light of the young moon, and the river Abana radiated soft shimmerings. In this respect, also, chance should favour us. About a week later, when we hoped to leave, the moon would not rise until after midnight; so that darkness would help us to slip from the barracks, and moonlight would help us as we moved across open country. Just then my meditations were chased away by a fantastic, far-away sound. Somewhere in the maze of streets a wheezy barrel organ was playing--playing _Funiculì, Funiculà_! How a barrel organ found itself in Damascus, and in war-time Damascus, I did not try to guess. All I knew, or wanted to know, was that across the warm, sensitive night air there floated the lively old tune: and if you are away from Europe take it from me that nothing will bring you to the back streets of London, of Paris, of Naples as quickly as a barrel organ playing _Funiculì, Funiculà_. For long after the barrel organ had become silent, and only the moonlight and the stillness remained, I was back in England. Late next morning George burst into the room, with a beaming face and a palpable desire for news telling. "_Mon cher_," he said to me, "I have found a Druse who will guide you. He knows about the gold, and although not quite sure, he thinks he can trust you, as British officers, to see that he gets paid. He demands two hundred pounds in gold when you reach 'X', and fifty pounds in paper now, for the hire of horses." I was overjoyed at this new prospect of a road to liberty; but when I had translated George's French for the benefit of the Australians, M. counselled caution. "I don't like the sound of that fifty pounds down," he said. "Tell him we won't pay anything until we're outside Damascus and have the horses."