This time what woke him was toppling off the bale, his hands and arms in semi-consciousness saving him as he struck the floor. It was an ugly feeling, that sense of a helpless fall. But he was awake, chilly and sharply wide-awake, when he crawled up from the dirt-sting of the floor.
The corridor swam in a dim grey twilight which seemed as dingy as the prison. Outside the tall barred windows he could detect a white mist, wisps of it, past grime-speckled panes. Once more he consulted his watch. Two minues to four o'clock.
A great exultation sang in him, though he felt as if he had slept in a barrel. It was nearly all over. Give it dead to the time — exactly to the ant-busy travelling of the watch's secondhand — and then unlock the door.
The beam of the lamp still shone straight across, against murky daylight Stevenson, unread, had sprawled open on the floor. If there could be degrees of silence, Pentecost Prison seemed more utterly silent now than at any time during the night. And Stannard?
Martin let the full two minutes tick round. Then, drawing the large key out of his pocket, he went over to the iron door.
"Stannard!" he shouted.
Chapter 11
Shading his eyes, Martin peered through the grille. Grey traces, very faint, showed a vertical glimmer along the edge of the execution shed door, which stood about an inch
open. Obviously, as in the case of the condemned cell, that room must have some kind of window. "Stannard!" he called, with the same formula. "Are you all right?’
"I'm here. I'm—" The voice seemed to answer somewhat hollowly, and from a distance away, though the oak door stood a little open. Odd, perhaps. Who cared?