"Come," said the Israelite. "We have no time to lose."

What he said was true. From the direction of the entrance came the sound of voices and the flickering of a torch danced upon the walls.

"Neshak! Ho, Neshak, where are you?" called a voice.

"They are seeking the jailer," Nathan whispered. "Come!"

He darted down the corridor into the darkness, with the two Greeks at his heels. At the end of a dozen yards they turned quickly to the left, up a flight of stairs, and then through other passageways, until they reached a second short stairway and emerged upon the roof.

They stood panting and listening beside the head of the stair. Above them the wide arch of the sky was sown with stars. From the black opening at their feet came a confused sound of cries and shouting.

"They have found the jailer's body," Nathan said. "I fear we are lost.

It shall be as Jehovah wills!"

He drew a short sword from its sheath at his side.

"Is there no other way to the roof?" Clearchus asked.

"No other way," Nathan replied; "but how can we hope to hold this against them?"

The Athenian looked about him. The roof was built of huge slabs of stone, fitted together without mortar, and there was nothing that might serve as even a temporary barricade.

"If we could only raise one of these," he said, stooping over one of the slabs.

"Not ten men could do it," Nathan replied, shaking his head.

"Let us see," said Chares.

He thrust his fingers under the stone and set his feet wide apart. The muscles of his back and arms rose in ridges. The veins of his neck swelled like knotted cords. The great stone stirred in its bed.

Clearchus and Nathan dropped their weapons and bent eagerly to assist him. The ponderous mass heaved slowly upward, tilting toward the opening that led to the stairway. From the sound of the voices within they knew that their pursuers were close at hand.

"Life or death!" groaned Chares, the sweat streaming from his body like rain. "Now!"

The mighty stone rose inch by inch upon its edge, standing higher than the heads of the three men, who were now behind and beneath it. Their pursuers had evidently halted on the stairs, expecting the opening to the roof to be defended. Puzzled by the silence, they seemed to be concerting a plan of attack. Suddenly they sprang upward with a shout, thrusting forward their spears and crowding for the aperture.

The great slab stood upright, balancing on its lower end. While a man might draw breath, it hung motionless, and then it toppled over upon the opening from the stairs.

The foremost of the pursuers saw it and with inarticulate cries sought to retreat. They were too late. The heavy mass crashed down upon their heads and covered the opening. Nathan and Clearchus fell forward with it and lay gasping. Chares swayed upon his feet and his head reeled. The blood dripped from the ends of his fingers, where it had burst from beneath his nails. Faintly from under the stone issued cries of agony, as though some of the guard had been caught there and held fast by mangled limbs.

Nathan staggered to his feet and groped for his sword. "Now for the wall," he cried. "We may yet escape!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY

As Clearchus lay upon the broad slab, the voices of his friends seemed to him faint and far away. He tried to rise, but a strange languor weighed him down. Chares seized him and dragged him to his feet.

"Wake up!" cried the Theban. "We still have a chance. You tremble like a girl."

Clearchus gathered his senses with an effort of will, and the two Greeks followed Nathan across the roof toward the great wall, against which the prison was built.

Nathan led them straight to the foot of a narrow flight of steps, roughly hewn in the masonry and scarcely discernible a few yards away.

Up these he climbed with the agility of a cat. Clearchus, still faint and dizzy, hesitated for a moment, gazing at the sheer height that towered above his head.

"Forward!" Chares cried behind him. "It is our only hope."

Clearchus set his feet in the narrow steps and followed Nathan, carrying the jailer's spear in his left hand and clinging to each projection with his right. More than once his feet slipped and Chares saved him from falling. The steps wound upward almost perpendicularly, and it was evident that they were rarely used, for in places the soft brick had crumbled, leaving wide gaps.

"Look up!" Chares cried desperately, as Clearchus halted at one of these dangerous points. "Look up--and remember Artemisia, whom thou alone canst save!"

He had touched the right chord at last. The Athenian's brain cleared at the mention of Artemisia's peril, and he forgot his own. The wall no longer seemed to waver before his eyes. All doubt of his ability to pass where Nathan had passed before him vanished from his mind, and he gained the top with an even pulse.

They paused for a moment to get their bearings. Far beneath them they saw the starlight trembling on the broad sweep of the Euphrates, beyond which for miles lay a level country, dotted with trees and fields.

Behind them spread the sleeping city, an endless succession of roofs and towers. Here and there a torch glimmered like a firefly. The crest of the wall, upon which they stood and where four chariots might have been driven abreast without crowding, was apparently deserted.

The sound of shouting rose from the direction of the prison. They saw a cluster of torches issue from the main entrance and scatter in every direction.

"They are giving the alarm," Nathan said, "but I think we shall have time to disappoint them. There is a rope waiting for us where the river touches the wall, and at its lower end we shall find a boat."

The river was several hundred yards distant from the spot where they stood. Before they could reach the place where the rope was concealed, they must traverse nearly a quarter of a mile. Between them and safety stood one of the guard-houses built for the sentries whose duty it was to patrol the wall night and day. Still worse, they must pass the entrance of a broad flight of steps that led downward into the city and formed the usual means of ascent to the top of the wall.

It had been Nathan's plan to come up by these steps and gain the rope without passing the guard-house. The obstinacy of the jailer had disarranged everything. It was of the first importance that they should reach the rope before the sentinels on the wall could learn what had happened, or the guards from below could mount.

Like shadows they sped along the top of the wall, holding as near as possible to the outer edge so as not to be seen from the city. Outside the guard-house a sentry stood, craning his neck to see what was going on beneath him to cause all the shouting. They stole by behind his back without arousing his attention.

They had fled past the head of the stairway and were congratulating themselves on their good fortune when they came suddenly face to face with a returning sentry, slowly pacing his beat. The man was as much surprised as they and seemed in doubt as to whether they were friends or foes. Before he could make up his mind, Chares gripped him by the throat and the broad blade of the jailer's spear buried itself in his heart. He had uttered no cry. Chares dragged the body under the parapet that had been built where the wall overhung the river to protect the defenders from the archers who might be sent to attack the city from ships.

Crouching in the shadow of this elevation, they went on at a slackened pace, expecting every moment to come upon the rope. It was nowhere to be found. The shouting from the city now came clearly up from the staircase as the guards ascended. Finally Nathan paused and looked doubtfully about him.

"It should be very near here," he said, "but I do not see it."

"Then there is nothing for it but to take as many of them with us as we can," Chares said, rising to his full height. "Zeus, how my back aches! I hate this skulking."

Apparently the sentinel at the guard-house whom they had passed understood at last what was the matter. He roused the rest of the guard. Clearchus and Nathan pulled Chares down into the shadow. They were so near that they could hear what was said.

"Captives have escaped! They are coming up by the prison stairway!"

the man told his companions in an excited voice. "They are asking us to stop them. Boupares himself is on his way up."

The men came tumbling out of the guard-house and ran to the inner edge of the wall, shouting down with much gesticulation that they would meet the fugitives. Then they hastened back toward the prison.

"Much good that will do them," Chares laughed.

"We have still a few moments," Clearchus said. "Where was the rope to be?"

"Here--opposite the Tower of Baal," Nathan replied.