"Look on the outside of the wall; it may be there," the Athenian suggested.

Nathan climbed upon the parapet and looked over.

"Here it is," he cried joyfully. "Follow me!"

As he spoke, he slipped over the edge of the wall and vanished.

"Follow him, Chares," Clearchus said. "Go quickly!"

"You first," the Theban answered doggedly.

"No," Clearchus answered with firmness. "It is my turn to guard the rear. I shall not stir until you are over the wall."

"Very well, have your way," Chares replied.

He vaulted upon the parapet and looked down. The rope had been attached to a bar of iron driven firmly into the bricks near the coping, and it dangled from between his feet into the gulf beneath him.

The cord seemed slender to sustain his weight, but there was no time in which to test it. Swinging himself over the edge, he grasped the bar and then the rope, letting himself down hand over hand, with his feet against the rough surface of the wall. From the twitching of the cord in his hands, he knew that Nathan had not yet reached the bottom. He wondered how long it would be before the rope would break and send him headlong into the dark abyss.

Clearchus, left alone behind the parapet, flattened his body in the shadow and waited. He had seen Chares begin his descent, and he knew that the rope would not sustain the weight of all three at the same time. He resolved to allow Chares an opportunity to reach the foot of the wall before he himself started down. He counted upon the mistake that the sentries had made, in going back to the prison staircase in their search, to give him time.

Hardly had Chares disappeared before a company of soldiers, with torches in their hands, emerged from the head of the great stairway.

The glare searched every corner on top of the wall, and the Athenian saw that concealment was no longer possible.

He knew that he must act promptly. The faces of the new arrivals were turned toward the sentinels, who were still engaged in searching about the prison stairway. It could be only a few moments before the futility of further effort in that direction must become evident to them, and the hunt would turn toward where he lay.

Should he attempt to gain the great staircase and slip into the city, where the Israelites might hide him, at least for a time? It would be impossible to evade the soldiers who were still coming up. He dismissed the idea from his mind.

Possibly he could escape along the southern stretch of wall. Beyond him at a distance there seemed to be a bridge, or causeway, connecting the wall with the enormous mass of earth and bricks that upheld the Hanging Gardens. The groves of palms and the tangle of shrubbery that crowned the Gardens might conceal him, even though the place was within the precincts of the palace itself.

He was about to try this plan and had already partly risen to put it into execution, when he saw the guard turning out at a station between him and the causeway. His chance of flight in that direction was cut off.

He could hear the chafing of the rope against the bricks on the other side of the parapet. Chares was still lowering himself toward the river. To try the rope now would be not only to endanger the lives of his two friends by overstraining the cord, but to reveal their mode of escape and expose them to certain death, since the guard would lose no time in cutting it.

Clearchus felt that he had been caught in a trap from which there was no outlet. He thought of the words the jailer had used in describing the death allotted to them. He thought of Artemisia, defenceless in Tyre. A vision of the life he had hoped to lead in the pleasant city of his birth, with her at his side, flitted through his mind. The Gods had bestowed upon him the hope of happiness that was not to be fulfilled. Chares would tell Artemisia how he died. At least she would know that he had given his life for his friend.

So ran the young man's thoughts as he lay awaiting the moment of discovery. His mind was made up. They would never take him back to the prison. Perhaps his friends might recover his body and give it burial amid the groves beyond the river.

Although the time seemed long, in reality only a few minutes passed before the portly form of Boupares, supported on either side by a stalwart soldier, appeared upon the platform at the head of the broad stair. The governor was out of breath and also out of patience. The knowledge that he would find it difficult to account for the loss of the prisoners weighed upon his mind.

The guards crowded about him with explanations and excuses. No trace could be found of the fugitives, they told him. It was certain they had not reached the top of the wall. If they had, they must have wings, since they had disappeared, leaving no trace.

"Search, you dogs!" Boupares gasped. "A thousand darics to the man who finds them!"

The moment was at hand. Clearchus unclasped the fibula that fastened the chiton upon his shoulder and drew his feet out of his sandals.

There was a cry from one of the guards. He had found the body of the sentinel. A group gathered about it to see. It was proof that the fugitives had passed along the wall, and all eyes were directed toward the Athenian's hiding-place.

Clearchus let fall his garments and with a bound gained the top of the parapet. The red light of the torches shone full upon his naked figure, gleaming against the dark sky, as perfect in every line as the form of Phbus Apollo. For an instant the soldiers were dumb with astonishment and superstitious dread. The shape had appeared where there had been nothing a moment before. It seemed to them that it must be that of a God. Then one of them caught sight of the abandoned chiton and the spell was broken.

"Seize him! Strike him down!" they cried.

"Take him alive!" bellowed Boupares.

Clearchus turned his back upon them and gave a single glance at the wide sweep of water that eddied and gurgled at the foot of the great wall, how far below him he dared not guess. A javelin hissed past him and was swallowed by the darkness. With muscles as firm as steel, he took two steps forward and shot out from the dizzy height.

He heard the cry of astonishment and involuntary alarm from the soldiers behind him. The light of the torches flashed in his eyes, and then fled suddenly upward.

He looked down upon the wrinkled surface of the river. The impetus of his leap had carried him out beyond the slope of the wall, and he saw that he would strike the water as he had planned, instead of being dashed to pieces.

The rushing air blinded him like a mighty wind. He heard its roar in his ears. Mechanically he pressed the palms of his hands together below his head, and stiffened and straightened his body so that it might offer no surface of resistance in the plunge. Then he knew no more.

Faintly the cry of the guards floated downward. Their torches twinkled over the parapet. Chares, who, with aching arms, was clinging to the last few fathoms of the rope, looked upward. So did Nathan, pausing in his task of fitting a pair of oars to the rowlocks of a small boat that he had pushed out from the wall.

They saw the form of Clearchus as it shot downward from the sky. They saw it strike the water not twenty feet from them, leaving a circle of foam, with hardly a splash to mark where it had fallen, so straight and true was its descent.

Chares let the end of the rope slip through his hands and leaped into the boat. With a few rapid strokes Nathan brought the little craft to the centre of the widening ripple, where the bubbles were still rising.

Both leaned over the gunwale, straining their eyes for sight of the body in the dark water.

A minute passed, and another, while they held their breath. Then Nathan uttered a cry.

"There he is!" he shouted, pointing downward.

It was only a glimmer of white under the ripple, which showed for an instant and was gone; but Chares plunged from the boat and disappeared beneath the surface. When he rose, he held the body of his friend across his arm, hanging limp and apparently lifeless. Nathan drew it into the boat and then helped Chares to his place in the stern.

"Is he dead, think you?" the Theban asked, taking the form across his knees as though it were that of a child.

"There is no mark on him; he may be only stunned," Nathan replied, resuming his oars.

Chares gazed at the pale face, with the dripping hair streaming back from its temples, and, bending forward, placed his ear over the heart.

"It beats," he cried. "He lives! Pull away, Nathan, and let the jackals howl!"

Arrows and javelins struck the water around the boat, but there was little danger from the marksmen above, unless some missile should find them by chance. The craft was almost indistinguishable from the top of the wall.

Nathan worked hard at the oars, while Chares rolled the body of Clearchus on his knees. Then he rubbed the pale limbs briskly and by no means gently until the blood began to circulate again. At last Clearchus opened his eyes and drew a deep breath.

"Is this the Styx?" he asked faintly. "Is the story true then, after all?"

"Not yet," Chares replied, with a laugh. "Your time has not yet come.

You are dreaming."

Clearchus turned his head and saw the precipice of the mighty wall, rising black toward the stars and crowned with the red glow of the torches.

"Did I dive from there?" he asked wonderingly; "or is that, too, a dream?"

"It is no dream," Chares replied, "but a deed that will be told throughout the army for the Companions to envy. Give me the oars, Nathan; I need exercise."

Nathan yielded the oars, and the tough blades bent as the Theban threw his weight upon them. The boat sped through the water toward a grove of trees that stood like a patch of darker shadow on the other shore.