“None, or next to none. The kasbah’s as strong as Newgate. And the worst of it is, we were spotted and followed, had to truss up one fellow; another alarmed the village. We escaped just by the skin of our teeth.” He related in detail the incidents of the night. “It looks as if we’ll have to back out after all,” said Oliphant gloomily when the story was finished. “I’ll be hanged if we will. I’ve been thinking it over, and talking it over with Abdul, on the way back. The only chance, it seems to me, is to face all the risks and make a dash for it.” “What do you mean?” “Come down in the airship on the terraced roof of the kasbah under cover of night, and trust to luck to find our way to the prisoners’ quarters.” “But that would be confoundedly risky, especially after you have once given the alarm in the village.” “I admit that’s a nuisance, but it’s perhaps not so bad as you think. You see, the Moors know nothing—I hope they don’t, at any rate—about the airship, and they won’t look for intruders from the sky. The botheration is that we’ve lost a lot of time, and our chance is utterly dished if the Jew gets in first. Abdul says he can’t be more than a day’s march from the place now. That’s about thirty miles, as near as I can make out. Luckily it’s very rough country, so that he can’t come fast. He’s probably starting this very morning for his last stage; it’s possible that we’ve already lost our chance, for he’s sure to hurry, and if he gets the ear of the sheikh before nightfall, they’ll be on the watch for us.” “But even without the Jew I don’t see how your scheme’s possible. There are sure to be extra guards at the wall, and if the night were as bright as this they couldn’t help seeing the machine, and we couldn’t alight without their knowledge.” “Yes; but you must allow for their ignorance and superstition. If they do see the airship swooping down on them they’ll be scared out of their wits; they’ll think it some monstrous evil bird straight from Gehenna——” “Which is down below, not up aloft.” “They won’t be in a state to draw distinctions of that sort. Abdul assures me that these ignorant mountaineers—he was one himself once, but travel has widened his mind!—will be in such a state of terror that they’ll be for a time pretty well paralysed: and time’s all we want.” “Well, he ought to know his countrymen. But there’s the Jew: suppose he _does_ get there first?” “We’ve got to prevent him.” “What!” “As I say, we must go and intercept him.” “But he won’t come alone.” “Of course not. Abdul says he will come on horseback with a band of armed and mounted men. He wouldn’t trust himself in this country without an escort. But that’s where the airship comes in. I rather fancy that if we swoop down from the sky among a lot of Moors they’ll think more of their own safety than of the Jew’s.” “Still, we couldn’t prevent them from going on to the village.” “I think we could.” “What! shoot ’em down?”