"Loose us tonight! Loose us on Kom tonight!"
There were anxious cries from the guards on the stair as the great mob battered at the gate. Those of the guards who patrolled the stair's upper part ran down swiftly to aid their fellows in holding the gate. It was this that Lantin and I awaited, and at once I grasped the metal grappling-hook, whirled it round my head by the attached rope, and then sent it hurtling through the air toward the edge of the stair above us.
It struck the outside of the stair's low wall with a loud clang that brought my heart to my throat, and that I feared would attract the attention of the guards at the gate, even over the clamor of the crowd. But the hook had not caught and fell down beside me.
Before I could throw it again there was a warning whisper from Lantin, and in a moment a solid group of some fifty men rushed by us, heading toward the riot at the gate, news of which had evidently penetrated to the city's farthest reaches. They raced by, not seeing us in the darkness, and after them came four or five single stragglers who likewise passed us without stopping. Then, the coast again being clear for the moment, I slung up the hook again, with more force than before, and felt a throb of relief when it caught, slid a little along the edge of the stair-wall, and then caught again.
I tried the rope hastily, but it held firm, so I hastily began to climb up it, by means of the thick knots along its length. Scrambling up with panicky swiftness, I reached the rail, pulled myself over, and lay gasping for a moment on the stair. Then, leaning over the rail, I signaled to Lantin, whom I could see but dimly in the darkness. Bracing myself against the wall of the stair, I pulled in the rope until after a seeming eternity my friend's head appeared above the wall. He scrambled over, and then, winding the rope around my body and tossing the hook as far away as possible, I stood for a moment motionless.
Across the plaza, and below us, was the gate, flooded with crimson light and alive with activity. The mobs of the city's dwellers were pressing against the gate, while the guards were repelling them by thrusting through the bars with their long spears. And from all the long streets that stretched away into the darkness there came the sound of many running feet, and the cries of excited men. Certainly the riot which our friends had kindled to aid us was no mean one.
A moment only I watched the scene below, then turned, and with Lantin beside me, began the long climb up the spiral stair.
As we toiled up along the steeply slanting spiral, the clamor at the gates below gradually lessened in volume as we drew away from it. That the riot below had not yet been quelled, though, was evident, for before we had been on the stair ten minutes, a tiny beam of blue light flashed out at the gate, a narrow little shaft of azure light that clove up to the shaft above us, and seemed to stab straight up to the metal cover of that shaft.
I remembered Denham's words concerning the signaling of the guards, and wondered if that was the cause of the little light. In a minute it vanished, but as we raced on up around the great spiral, a faint sound came down to us from far above, a grating clash of metal that we could barely hear.