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.
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