hought. Yet his vision seemed to rest,
true as a plumb-line, on the hiding-place. Was he in doubt?--he could
reach down lazily, and feel.

Worst of all, the greenish pallor in the eastern sky had imperceptibly
turned brighter; and now the ribbed edge of a roof, across the way,
began to glow like incandescent silver. The moon was crawling up.

The head and the dangling goblet were slowly pulled in, just before the
moonlight, soft and sullen through the brown haze of the heat, stole
down the wall and spread upon the tiles. The shutter remained open. But
Heywood drew a free breath: those eyes had been staring into vacancy.

"Now, then," he thought, and sat up to the cranny; for the rattle of the
abacus had stopped.

"The counting is complete," announced the Red Wand slowly, "the hours
are numbered. The day--"

Movement, shadow, or nameless instinct, made the listener glance upward
swiftly. He caught the gleam of yellow silk, the poise and downward jab,
and with a great heave of muscles went shooting down the slippery
channel of the cock's blood. A spearhead grazed his scalp, and smashed
a tile behind him. As he rolled over the edge, the spear itself whizzed
by him into the dark.

"The chap saw," he thought, in mid-air; "beastly clever--all the time--"

He landed on the spear-shaft, in a pile of dry rubbish, snatched up the
weapon, and ran, dimly conscious of a quiet scurrying behind and above
him, of silent men tumbling after, and doors flung violently open.

He raced blindly, but whipped about the next corner, leaving the moon at
his back. Westward, somebody had told him, to the gate where
dragons met.

There had been no uproar; but running his hardest down the empty
corridors of the streets, he felt that the pack was gaining. Ahead
loomed something gray, a wall, the end of a blind alley. Scale it, or
make a stand at the foot,--he debated, racing. Before the decision came,
a man popped out of the darkness. Heywood shifted his grip, drew back
the spear, but found the stranger bounding lightly alongside, and
muttering,--

"To the west-south, quick! A brother waits. I fool those who follow--"

Obeying, Heywood dove to the left into the black slit of an alley, while
the other fugitive pattered straight on into the seeming trap, with a
yelp of encouragement to the band who swept after. The alley was too
dark for speed. Heywood ran on, fell, rose and ran, fell again, losing
his spear. A pair of trembling hands eage