And quick, that monotony reels into a very frenzy of sensation: it
is no more the same world, the same men. Lo, in the Palace of
Continuity is an Event.

33 was off.

Five hundred pairs of eyes lit up, and the flurried warders ran in
random dismay to see to it! How if all the five hundred should do
the like, simultaneously?--a possibility underlying, through all its
breadth, the little social "system" which has produced Colmoor.

But the five hundred, exhorted, stamped at, shouted at, remained
quiet, though restive, only the wild eye showing the wild thought,
while two of the warders pursued O'Hara who had also to run the
blockade of two pickets of the civil guard.

The escaping convict, however, has this advantage: that his mind is
strung to a far higher pitch than his pursuers'; and, given a
certain ecstasy, everything can be accomplished.

So O'Hara separately dodged the two pickets, and was making bolt for
the copse before three rifles, aimed at a large vague ghost, rang
out, and did not hit. He plunged madly into the brambly bush.

Immediately a bleating like a child's trumpet was heard from its
midst; and in a few seconds, not one, but _four_, men were seen to
rush toward the river, all in convict knickerbockers, stockings,
caps, all in black overcoats: and one carried a bundle.

Beyond the river one was shot in the leg--a black sailor, who, with