As was his custom, when the orderlies had finished their work, the _onbashi_ locked the house and kitchen doors. No sooner had his footsteps died away than the advance-guard of our party set to work to complete the opening of the wall. It was now about 8.15 P.M. The work went on quickly but quietly. A few minutes only and the clear starlit sky was visible through the rapidly enlarging aperture. Then came another anxious moment. As the two were relieving one another at the work, there suddenly appeared at the half-completed task the head of a mongrel dog. One growl or bark would suffice to draw the attention of the watchmen over the vegetable gardens outside, who did not hesitate to fire off their ancient rifles on the slightest alarm; but the dog after one look in at the hole strolled on, and the good work was resumed. There was one large stone which seemed likely to give trouble; indeed it had almost been decided to let it remain, when it suddenly came away and crashed noisily to the ground. But the sound, if heard at all, fell on deaf ears--although it must have been at about this very time that some of the party, still in the house and overlooking the wall, saw a man standing within a score of yards from the hole. Their work completed, Old Man and Looney proceeded to screen it from any one passing casually along, by affixing a square of canvas over the outside with "blobs" of beeswax. It now only remained to arrange for the easy withdrawal of the staple of the kitchen door, so that the latter could be opened from the outside, although padlocked; then, having donned haversack, water-bottle, and pack, to await the arrival of the remaining six from this house, four of our own and two of another party. When Old Man and Looney had stepped off to the kitchen the other six of the second-floor mess had remained at table, talking and smoking as usual. The Turkish corporal taking roll-call reappeared from the room beyond the dining-room, and was told not to forget the "yourt" for the next day. "Yourt," a kind of junket, is a staple diet of the Turk, and most of the prisoners became very partial to it. As it was hard to come by except through the medium of a sentry, it was their custom to remind him each evening, so that he might have some faint chance of remembering about it next morning.