And they were pointing over to him and shouting. "The
Sleeper! Save the Sleeper!" shouted a multitude of throats.
Something struck the wall above his head. He looked up at the impact and
saw a star-shaped splash of silvery metal. He saw Lincoln near him. Felt
his arm gripped. Then, pat, pat; he had been missed twice.
For a moment he did not understand this. The street was hidden,
everything was hidden, as he looked. The second flare had burned out.
Lincoln had gripped Graham by the arm, was lugging him along the gallery.
"Before the next light!" he cried. His haste was contagious. Graham's
instinct of self-preservation overcame the paralysis of his incredulous
astonishment. He became for a time the blind creature of the fear of
death. He ran, stumbling because of the uncertainty of the darkness,
blundered into his guards as they turned to run with him. Haste was his
one desire, to escape this perilous gallery upon which he was exposed. A
third glare came close on its predecessors. With it came a great shouting
across the ways, an answering tumult from the ways. The red-coats below,
he saw, had now almost gained the central passage. Their countless faces
turned towards him, and they shouted. The white facade opposite was
densely stippled with red. All these wonderful things concerned him,
turned upon him as a pivot. These were the guards of the Council
attempting to recapture him.
Lucky it was for him that these shots were the first fired in anger for
a hundred and fifty years.
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