with a spasm to the corridor. At its end, the door swung open; the five felons shot through it; 9009 saw their galloping backs rise and fall as those of jockeys at a race———
Then he straightened to his full height, swung his right arm across his cell-mate’s face, and with the roar of a bull, charged down the corridor.
Right away he had to leap. He had to leap the gray-haired guard, looking upward with his scarlet-masked face; to leap the burglar, still gesticulating jerkily with his long-striped legs; a trusty, doubled up, coughing; another, paralyzed with fear. He leaped like a lean greyhound, he sped through the outer door, a ray of sun struck him hot on the cheek, he whipped around the corner into the wall-bound yard, he took three great strides—and stopped, facing six black disks.
They were gazing at him, round, swinging slowly from side to side, like the eyes of oxen, forty feet away, in a half circle converged upon him. After a while, behind the six black disks, he saw six dull-gleaming rifle-barrels, then be-
