The vision of an abyss, grey, without shape, swayed before his eyes as he strode northwards, moving uncertainly, staggering slightly, without guidance. His footsteps became slower. He came to a halt and looked about him curiously. He was under a railway bridge that crossed the street sideways over his head, encased in a black covering. A little dark laneway opened to his right. He walked three paces up the laneway and leaned his shoulder against the damp wall.
There was shelter there. The wind did not come in. Only an odd gust swivelled around the corner and stirred the damp, musty air for a dying moment. It was quiet and dark, like the interior of a cave. He sighed.
Gradually he grew composed. He grew calm and very weary. He wanted to lie down and go to sleep for a long, long time. There was no use struggling any farther. He was alone. The darkness of the night enveloped him.
“There’s nobody here,” he murmured aloud.
The ground was a puddle. The walls were blank. He felt with his feet, seeking a dry spot to lie down. Everywhere his boot sank into a puddle. He cursed and moved on a pace. He felt again with his feet. Still more puddles. He moved along still farther and tried again. No use. Then he began to walk along mechanically, feeling the ground at intervals. Then he kept walking slowly without feeling the ground. He had forgotten about lying down.
He came to the end of the lane and saw a wide street in front of him. He halted excitedly.
“Where am I going?” he cried aloud.
He started at the sound of his voice and peered suspiciously over his shoulder. Of course there was nobody there. Then he steadied himself and tried to think of where he was and what had happened. It was a terrific struggle.
Slowly he began to remember recent events. Fact after fact came prowling into his brain. Soon the whole series of events stood piled there in a crazy heap. Everything rushed towards that heap with increasing rapidity, but nothing could be abstracted from it. It was just as if the facts were sinking in a puddle and disappearing. It was utterly impossible for him to reason out a plan of action.
“I must make a plan,” he murmured aloud.
In answer to this exhortation came a vision of Gallagher’s glittering eyes. They fascinated him. He forgot about a plan. A horde of things crashed together in his brain making an infernal buzz. He lost control of himself and ran about under the archway, striking out with his hands and feet madly, trying to fight the cargo of things that were jammed together in his brain. It was that insensate rage that overcomes strong men at times, when they have nothing upon which to vent their fury, no physical opponent.
He worked madly at this curious exercise for fully five minutes. Then he stopped, with perspiration streaming from his forehead. He felt better. His head was clear. He was again conscious of a grim determination to escape, to outwit those fellows who were on the Bridge. An idea that he thought amazingly cunning occurred to him, an idea to escape towards the south, by making a wide detour towards the north, up by the North Circular Road to Phoenix Park, then westwards through the Park, then southwards again by Dolphin’s Barn. He was toying with the route pleasantly when he was suddenly interrupted by a sound of feet.
Trup, trap, trup, trap … came the sound of heavy feet coming down the street in front of him. Two policemen on their beat were coming along slowly, rattling door chains as they came. Gypo’s heart began to beat with terror. He thought they were looking for him. In his bewilderment he could not understand that he was now under police protection, an informer. He forgot that he had only to rush up to them and say that the Revolutionary Organization had condemned him to death and were now tracking him, in order to be taken to a police barracks, into safety. On the contrary, he still regarded them as his enemies. His mentality had not yet accustomed itself to the change that his going in the police-station that evening had wrought in his condition. To his understanding he was still a revolutionary. He was not at all conscious of being an informer, or a friend of law and order, a protégé of the police.
He bolted headlong out of the laneway and clattered away across the street. He wheeled to the right, ran ten yards and then dived into another lane. He continued his flight without stopping. He ran without purpose, without guidance, driven northwards by panic and the impossibility of thought. He ran headlong in all directions, into a street, down its course, then to the left, back again in a parallel line, down once more the street he had left, passing several times the same corner in his mad flight. He ran desperately, as if he were chasing some elusive sprite that delighted in turning on its own tracks. He floundered through pools. He struggled on his hands and knees over waste plots. He crushed violently through holes in torn walls. He climbed over piles of bricks, over walls, jumped into backyards and then climbed back again into another street. He was scratched, covered with mud, dripping wet. His eyes were bloodshot.
Then suddenly a clock struck the half-hour close by him. It was half-past four. He stopped dead, attracted by the tolling of the clock. It was not the sound but the remembrance it brought. He knew that clock. It was near Katie Fox’s house where he used to sleep. He stood in the middle of a narrow lane, with his legs wide apart and his chest and shoulders thrust forward listening to it. His lips were opened wide.
He stood, like an uncouth, half-formed thing, alone in
