He caught little more than a glimpse of torn clothes disappearing
through the little door at the end of the alley by the boarded shop,
and a second after he had started in pursuit he saw the door shut
with a slam and thought he heard a bolt snick home.
The door, though small, looked stout, and, thinking as he charged to
the assault, the Sikh put all the advantage he had of weight, and
steel-shod boots, and strength, and speed into the effort. A yard
from the door he took off, as a man does at the broad jump in the
inter-regimental sports, landing against the lower panel with his
heels two feet from the bottom.
The door went inward as if struck by a blast of dynamite, and the
Sikh's head struck a flagstone. Long strong arms seized him by the
feet and dragged him inside. Then the door closed again, and this
time a bolt really did shoot home, to be followed by two others and a
bar that fitted vertically into the beam above and the floor beneath.
Outside, thirty feet from the street corner, the crowd came together
as a tide-race meets amid the rocks, roaring, shouting, surging,
swaying back and forth, nine-tenths questioning at the limit of its
lungs, and one-tenth yelling information that was false before they
had it. Those at the back believed already that there were ten men
down.
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