"
Chick took the bundle that Geos had brought, and proceeded to don
his own clothes, finding deep satisfaction in the fact that they
had arrived as intact as he. He felt carefully in his hip pocket;
the automatic was still there, likewise the extra magazine of
cartridges that he had carried about with him on that night.
In his other pockets he found two packets of cigarettes, a pouch
of tobacco, some papers, a few coins, a little money and two
photographs, one of Bertha and the other of her father. Not a
thing had been disturbed.
He announced himself ready.
The Rhamda conducted him down the corridor, which he found to be
lined with guards; red on one side, blue on the other. These men
fell in behind in two parallel files, one of the one colour and
one of the other.
It was a building of great size. The corridors were long and high,
all with the wide-coved ceiling, and of colours that melted from
one shade to another as they turned, not corners, but curves.
Apparently each colour had its own suggestive reason. Such rooms
as Chick could look into were uniformly large, beautiful, and
distinctly lighted.
The guard moved in silent rhythm; the chief sound was that made by
Watson's leather-heeled shoes, drowning out, for once, the
everlasting tinkling undertone of those unseen fairy-bells; that
running cadence, never ceasing, silver, liquid, like the soul of
sound.
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