Before him gaped a black square, through
which he darted, to pitch head first over some fat, padded bulk. As he
rose, the rasping of rough jute against his cheek told him that he had
fallen among bales; and a familiar, musty smell, that the bales were his
own, in his own go-down, across a narrow lane from the nunnery. With
high hopes, he stumbled farther into the darkness. Once, among the
bales, he trod on a man's hand, which was silently pulled away. With no
time to think of that, he crawled and climbed over the disordered heaps,
groping toward the other door. He had nearly reached it, when torchlight
flared behind him, rushing in, and savage cries, both shrill and
guttural, rang through the stuffy warehouse. He had barely time, in the
reeling shadows, to fall on the earthen floor, and crawl under a thin
curtain of reeds to a new refuge.
Into this--a cubby-hole where the compradore kept his tally-slips,
umbrella, odds and ends--the torchlight shone faintly through the reeds.
Lying flat behind a roll of matting, Rudolph could see, as through the
gauze twilight of a stage scene, the tossing lights and the skipping men
who shouted back and forth, jabbing their spears or pikes down among the
bales, to probe the darkness.
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