The stars were singularly bright even for that hemisphere; but there was no moon as yet, fortunately, and softly quitting his hut, he looked sharply about the 'compound,' as it would be called in India, and found himself alone there, unnoticed and unseen. He drew near the hedge in the hope of finding, as he ultimately did, an opening in that barrier, a thinner portion of its dense branches, close to the ground, and at once he proceeded to creep through. How easy it seemed of accomplishment just then; but when the zereba was full of armed men, and watchers and sentinels were numerous, the attempt would have been useless. Slowly, softly, and scarcely making a twig or a thorn crack, he drew himself through on his hands and face ere many minutes passed; minutes? they could not have been more than five, if so many; but with life trembling in the balance, to poor Skene they seemed as ages. At last he was through! He was outside that hated place of confinement, every feature of which he knew but too well, and every detail of which he loathed; and yet he was not quite free. Keen eyes might see him after all, and every moment he expected to hear an alarm. He thanked Heaven for the absence of the moonlight, and, favoured by the obscurity, crept on his hands and knees for a considerable distance ere he ventured to stand erect, to draw a long breath, and with a prayer of hope and thankfulness on his lips, set out at a run towards the Nile. By the oft-studied landmarks he knew well in what direction the great river lay, a few miles off, however. A boat thereon, could he but find one, might be the means of ultimate escape, by taking him lower down the stream to more civilized regions. Anyway, he could not be worse off, be in greater hourly peril, or have a more dark future, than when in the zereba, unless, too probably, thirst and starvation came upon him. While the darkness of night lasted, he had a certain chance of safety and concealment, and he dared scarcely long for day and the perils it might bring forth in a land where every man's hand was certain to be against him. He was totally defenceless, unarmed--oh, thought he, for a weapon of any description, that he might strike, if not a blow for liberty or life, at least one in defiance and for vengeance! So, full of vague and desperate yet hopeful ideas, he pushed in the direction to where he knew the river lay. On its banks he hoped to obliterate or leave behind all trace of his footsteps, for he knew but too well the risk he ran of recapture on his flight or absence being discovered; and that there were Arabs in the zereba who had applied themselves diligently to the study of tracking or tracing the human foot.