The entrance to the guest-chamber would be from the terrace within the parapet. The floor above was occupied by the sheikh and his family; the floor below was devoted to the servants and the guard. Even as Tom looked, a figure passed slowly along the terrace, and the moonlight glinted on a steel musket barrel. It was clear that the guest-chamber was carefully guarded—a proof, it seemed, that Abdul’s suggestion was correct. Drawing Tom out of earshot, Abdul said that special orders must have been given, or the sentry would certainly not tramp up and down at this hour of night. Tom learnt afterwards that the Moorish soldier’s idea of sentry-go is a long nap in the nearest doorway. “Is there no entrance to the guest-chamber from within?” asked Tom. Abdul confessed that he did not know. He had never set foot within the walls. But he had once taken refuge for the night, on one of his journeys through the country, in a ruined kasbah of somewhat similar appearance, and there a door led from the guest-chamber into a small vestibule, which gave access to the upper floor and the roof above. Flitting silently across the square, Tom and the Moor took post under the shadow of the colonnade on the farther side, which ran at right angles to the wall of the kasbah. Within it was a row of shops, now shut and barred. There, leaning against one of the stout columns, within the black darkness of the Moorish arch, Tom scanned the kasbah, looming white in the moonlight, and meditated. To get into communication with the prisoner seemed absolutely hopeless. No one could force an entrance into the sheikh’s strong place. Was it possible to gain the assistance of some one within? Might not Hamet Ali, Abdul’s friend, act as intermediary between Tom and some servant of the sheikh’s? The cynical saying, “Every man has his price,” was literal truth in Morocco: such was the impression Tom had gained from his reading. But he knew enough of oriental ways to be sure that the fixing of the price would be a long and tedious affair. If the Moor were asked to name it, he would suggest a sum far in excess of what he would ultimately accept; while however large a sum were offered, it would prove only the starting place for long haggling. Indeed, the larger the bribe, the more likely it would be to excite the cupidity of the agent, and to encourage him to stand out for yet higher terms.