Guard!"

"Okay," a bored voice said. "Quit yelling. What's the trouble in there?"

"It's my arm," Thornwald gasped. "It's haemorrhaging—I'm bleeding to death!"

"You that one-armed fellow they just brought in?"

"Yes, yes! Come on! Get me a doctor before I bleed to death!"

There was a note of desperate urgency in Thornwald's voice that was so convincing he could almost feel his stump throbbing.

"All right, I'll take a look," the guard said finally. He fumbled with his keys and inserted one, while Thornwald threw himself to the floor and lay there, writhing in apparently hideous pain.

"Where are you?"

"Down here," Thornwald said weakly. "I can't stand up. I—"

The guard bent to see what was wrong, and Thornwald kicked upward at him. His boot took the jailer on the side of his jaw and knocked him backward against the wall. As he staggered there, stunned, Thornwald sprinted past him and out the cell door into the corridor.

"Get him, Miller!" he yelled as he broke away.

A bright stunbeam light spurted out as Thornwald left. He winced as it nicked him in one ankle, almost hamstringing him, but he kept going. Behind him, he heard the sound of Miller fighting with the bewildered guard.

Thornwald dashed down the corridor as well he could with one foot nearly crippled, reached the window, hoisted himself up with his arm, and crawled up to the ledge.

He smashed open the window and shimmied through.

He was out of jail now—or would be when he dropped the ten feet to the ground. But he wasn't out of trouble yet—not by a long shot.

The building up ahead was the Governor's Mansion—and that was the first stop, and, he hoped, the last.

The customs inspectors had said something about taking his trunk to the Governor. Good. Thornwald had to get to his trunk before much more time elapsed.

 Prev. P 5/11 next