Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/143

 hatch. He saw it led to the open air, for the stars were above them.

He felt grateful for that open air, for the coolness, for the sense of deliverance which came with even that comparative freedom.

"Don't stop!" she whispered. And he followed her across the slant of the uneven roof. He was weak for want of breath. The girl had to catch him and hold him for a moment.

"On the next roof you must take off your shoes," she warned him. "You can rest then. But hurry—hurry!"

He gulped down the fresh air as he tore at his shoe laces, thrusting each shoe in a side pocket as he started after her. For by this time she was scrambling across the broken sloping roofs, as quick and agile as a cat, dropping over ledges, climbing up barriers and across coping tiles. Where she was leading him he had no remotest idea. She reminded him of a cream-tinted monkey in the maddest of steeplechases. He was glad when she came to a stop.

The town seemed to lay to their right.