To gain this, bolt the heavy door behind him, and so, secure from interruption, set to work twining a rope from strips torn from his turban and waistband did not take long; but it was a good twenty minutes before he had knotted all fast; though while he worked he thought of nothing else; of nothing but somehow reaching the garden.

Once there he would face the next difficulty.

One was enough at a time.

And then, when he had made the rope fast to one of the marble pillars and slid down it, it proved too short.

He swung with his feet just touching the topmost branch of a blossoming peach tree.