The warden, as the three forms slipped out of darkness, across the landing, and down the next flight of the stairs, slowly raised his hand and pointed after them. Dave Lister, last of the three, distinctly saw the gesture!
VII—THE ALARM
Down the stairs went the three—another flight, and another—and in the lower hall they heard voices exclaiming loudly.
“The warden’ll have his wits back in a minute—and he saw us all go by—if he can talk to ‘em!” breathed Dave Lister. “Quick, Joe! Oh, quick!”
Joe Mantry already had found the lock of the door in the darkness. He had selected, with his sure, slim fingers, the largest of the keys. Now he slid it home in the lock and turned.
Some one was saying: “Here—there’s the lantern at last!”
Suddenly waves of lantern light washed through the hall, all down the length of it. Dave Lister, as usual, was the one of the three who looked back. He made out three or four dark forms halfway down the hall. He saw a man coming at a run, a lantern swinging crazily in his hand.
Then Joe Mantry opened the door, and they leaped outside and closed the door behind them.
The prison yard—the outer yard—was empty. Not a soul stirred in it. And the guard on the southern wall, looking gigantic against the stars, was walking away from them. His rifle wavered with a dim gleam as he carried it on his shoulder.
They turned the comer of the prison building, following after Phil Bray, and since they were now in front of the main structure, the gate to the guard wall was straight ahead of them. Toward that went Phil Bray, with his^ stocking-footed companions closing up beside him.
“We’ll put a gun on the gatekeeper. We’ll make him open up for us,” said Phil Bray softly. “No crazy work, now. You, Dave—you keep hold of yourself!”
“Like steel!” whispered Dave Lister. “Like steel!”
He kept saying that over and over, his voice hissing against his teeth:
“Like steel! Like steel!”
Dave was the weak link in the chain of three. If he held, all might go well.
The gatehouse was a little sentry box beside the huge double door that came together to close the entrance to the prison. In the face of that box there was a little oval window with a light behind it, and when Bray glanced inside he saw the gatekeeper sitting with his visored, official cap pushed halfway back on his head. He wore a blue coat with brass buttons; his stomach puffed out against the serge in a great double fold.
Bray pushed open the narrow door at the side and slid his revolver under the nose of the gatekeeper. There was blood on the gun and blood on the hand of Bray.
“All right, brother,” he said. “Open up for us!”
The gatekeeper kept on looking at the gun. All the color about his mouth disappeared. His lips were the color of gray stone, and, like stone, they seemed incapable of uttering speech. His mouth fell open and left his chin resting on his breast.
Joe Mantry glided in beside him, jerked a revolver out of the holster at the guard’s hip, and tapped him lightly over the head with the barrel of it. The cap fell off and exposed silver-gray hair, with the pink sheen of the scalp through the thinness of it.
“Start moving, grandpa!” said Mantry.
The gatekeeper got up, using more the force of his arms than the strength of his legs.
“The three of them!” he muttered. “The three of them!”
He pulled out a drawer of the little desk before him, and took out three keys for the three great locks of the gate. Then he walked outside with the three behind him, shouldering him with their closeness.
“Keep the guns out of sight. Don’t let ‘em shine!” whispered Bray.
They kept the guns out of sight, but they kept them pointing at the gatekeeper. There was a weapon for each of them now. The thin fingers of Dave Lister kept pipping and relaxing on the handle of his newly acquired Colt.
“Hey, Joe!” called a voice from the wall above. “Hey, Joe, all right?”
Out of the little guard tower above, to the side of the gate, a man was leaning, peering down.
“Answer!” said Bray, giving the gatekeeper his knee.
“Hi!” exclaimed the gatekeeper in a vague, bawling voice.
“What’s that?” called the guard above them.
“It’s all right!” whispered Bray. “Say that, or else “
“It’s all right!” shouted Joe, the gatekeeper.
He thrust the big keys one by one into the locks. He turned them. And as the second bolt slid back with a dim, clicking sound, the alarm bell suddenly started crashing out of the central sky, pouring brazen ruin about the ears of the fugitives.
“They’ve got you! Give it up!” snarled the gatekeeper.
The quick hand of Joe Mantry went past him, turned the third key, and the gate gave way, yawning open slowly.
Tall Dave Lister was the first through the opening. The noise of the alarm bell had maddened him. He was no longer saying to himself that he must be as cool and strong as steel. He went through that open gate with a bound like a deer and sprinted up the slope straight ahead of him. It made no difference to the madness of Dave Lister that the guard tower on the hill was directly in his path. He was blind. He simply wanted distance between him and the dreadful, irregular pulsation of that bell.
Phil Bray might have killed, Joe, the gatekeeper, to make sure that one less enemy was left behind him, but Bray hated blood when he could avoid the shedding of it. He simply gave the man the weight of the butt of his gun under the ear as he went through the gate, and Joe sat down with a sudden thud on the threshold.
“Let Lister go—the fool is ruining us by running!” growled Mantry at the ear of Bray.
“Where one goes, we all go,” answered Bray through his teeth. “Come on! We don’t welch!”
He charged right up the hill behind Lister. It was gallant; it was true and faithful companionship; but it was also throwing themselves away, perhaps. For an instant Joe Mantry wavered. But he was accustomed to following Bray. And now the force of a superior resolution drew him after his leader once more. He sprinted swiftly on Bray’s heels. The long legs of Lister were bounding over the ground well in the lead.
“Who’s there? Who’s there?” yelled the voice of the guard from above the gate. His words sounded vaguely and largely in the air, half lost in the frightful outcry of the alarm bell. The circling searchlight of the tower on the hill just before them cut across their path, picking them brightly out of the dark of the night.
The guard on the wall started firing.
At the second report of the rifle, Lister leaped into the air with a yell of pain, but landed, running faster than ever.
However, that guard was shooting too straight for comfort. And in another moment the searchlights might light up his target for him.
Phil Bray halted, turned, and took time for one breath to steady himself. Then he fired. He was fifty yards away, and it was a snap shot, but he got the guard right through the hips. The poor fellow folded up, and Bray ran on.
He turned into a greater peril than that from the guards on the prison wall.
The searchlight had snapped across them. Now it returned, letting its big white hand waver over the ground here and there, until it found them once more. It settled on them with a shudder, and then with a steady streaming of illumination. Instinctively the three fanned out to either side to try to get out of that deadly brightness.
Bullets would hail instantly down the path of the searchlight, of course. Even if they succeeded in running past the place, each of these guard towers had fast horses constantly under the saddle, ready to take up a pursuit.
“Shoot for the light!” yelled Bray, setting the example as he ran.