A paling of split canes was soon surmounted, and once more we found ourselves in the long street of Benin.
"If once we are free from the town," said Hartly, "we can find concealment during the day, and by travelling at night may reach the coast. Then, if we can but obtain a canoe, and pass over to one of the little isles in the Bight, we might remain there snugly enough, till some ship ran in on the same unlucky errand which brought poor Baylis here."
"Courage, Jack! Energy and faith will work miracles!"
"Don't talk of imagination; it may only paralyse you by the fears it fashions, the danger it suggests; but hush!"
At that moment the fire before the idol flared up broad and redly, and then the mingled roar of many voices swelled upon the night air.
High above the hedge-rows or kraals for containing cattle, and the lines of countless huts, formed of turf, of wickered cane, and other rude materials which the wild vines, creepers, and convolvuli concealed, rose the lurid flame that blazed before the misshapen god of Benin; and far across the flat city it cast the shadows of the tall giraffe trees, which grew in rows around the palace wall.
This red light mingled with the pale white lustre of the moon, which was just rising at the horizon, from whence its splendour cast long and steady shadows across the streets, and thereby favoured alike our concealment and escape.
As we hurried along the empty thoroughfares towards the town wall, Hartly found at the door of a hut, a war-club, of which he immediately took possession. It was formed of teak-wood, black as ebony, ponderously heavy, and its knob was covered by elaborate carvings.
While our hearts alternately glowed with hope, or sank with apprehension, unseen we reached the high wall of wood and clay, and ran alongside it, in search either of an outlet, or some means of surmounting it; but no wild creepers, no gourd vines or climbing convolvuli were permitted to grow there.
We had been out of our prison at least half-an-hour without being met or seen by a single negro.
At last we reached a place where, for more than a hundred feet, the wall was breached by the recent storm of wind and rain, which had overturned and beaten its ruins flat on the ground.