Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/160

 and the circle was all dark. Then some one screamed.

At that instant, I was sure it was Christina; I was sure he had her again. Then, I did not know. There was a whistle outside. "The bulls—bulls—bulls."

Cleopatra's fingers freed my wrist. I groped for her but she was gone. "Bulls—the bulls" men and girls said. No one cried again for lights; no one turned them on. In the dark, I felt streams of escape in opposite directions. Outside somebody was shooting; came shouts; now the clanging of patrol cars. Surprise was gone.

I felt myself sucked into an eddy of escape repulsed from one side and cast upon the other. We reached air and iron stairs. Pistols flashed before us; our van cleared the way. I came down to the alley pavement and stumbled over a man shot or fallen. I crossed the alley and reached a passage. A girl's hand led me through and, a block down, we found refuge.

I didn't know the girl. I never saw her face. It was dark and she left the shed before me. I dropped my robe there; and when I walked out, the circle of capture had closed and was still contracting, not expanding. The police took,