9009 picked up his rifle and made for the wall. There were two guards upon it at the point which he chose, holding their rifles in both hands, like hunters waiting for a flock of quail to rise, and they fell to the double crack of his rifle ere they could pull a trigger. One dropped inside the yard, the other hung, quivering, on the edge of the wall. Unwinding the rope around his waist, 9009 threw the grappling iron across the rail of the guards’ walk, and hurling his rifle ahead of him, climbed swiftly up like an ape. He paused for the flicker of an instant, there on the top, the inside of the prison like a diagram beneath him, the guard, now still, at his feet; then, disdainful of the rope, sprang down. He lit, huddled, by his rifle, seized it, and then, hunch-backed, ran for the hill. Shots sounded as he climbed, bullets whined by him,
