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of it was to find patches where the hauling up of the iron tank had roughened the stone. Once, fifteen feet above the yard, he found only a sleek and chilly surface. His hand slipped an inch but he pressed hard and checked it for a vital second, heart beating in his throat.
    He paused to wipe away the sweat from his hands, one by one, on his shirt. Shirt and trousers were all that he wore. He looked down steadily. Twenty feet? Glancing up, he thought the metal square of the cistern was nearer now than the paving of the yard. The narrow features contorted with energy and concentration, as he struggled in the stone angle. For a moment he lost his breath and held still with the practised self-discipline of a roof-top thief. All the same, at thirty, he was already an old man playing a young man's game.
    Beyond the prison, a clock chimed the quarter. Rann was surprised that only fifteen minutes had passed since he stood in the airing-yard, gazing up to where he now writhed for his life against the granite.
    Another breath and a cautious movement of one hand. Thirty feet surely? Above him, an iron rim round the base of the cistern would be in his grasp if only he could stand upright.
    Instead, he pushed his back hard in the angle and worked himself a few inches higher, one hand and then the other, fingers splayed to find the next slight roughness of the stone, right foot and then the left, keeping the pressure even, moulding the soles of his feet for purchase there. Despite the smoothness, he felt that his left foot was bleeding. The stone was chipped sharply here and there by the fixing of the iron supports below the cistern. But the roughness that broke his skin also gave him safety, as he closed his mind to pain.
    At last, he reached up cautiously and touched the iron rim round the base of the cistern, above and to one side.
    Rann breathed deep again. With his right hand, he held the cold iron rim, gritted by rust. He steadied himself, feet against the granite. With a sob of breath, he snatched upwards with the left hand.
    His arms ached while he hung there, as though he had been hoisted on a strappado. To ease the pain, a fool would now try to pull himself up the iron flank - and would fall. Dangling from the bolted rim, praying that it had not at some point flaked away, he moved hand by hand to where the cistern met the wall. An angled strut supported it. Those who offered such a perch had thought a man must either fall before he reached the tank or would never get past the cheveau-de-frise above it.
    He drew his left knee up and lodged his foot in the iron angle of the support, taking the weight that had tortured his biceps. Pushing up, he held the top rim of the iron cistern with the grip of one hand and then the other. Using the strength of his foot in the angle, he got his right forearm on the upper cistern-rim. He drew his foot cautiously from the iron bracket, snatched with his left hand and eased his second arm on to the upper rim. By a heave and a kick, he pulled himself on to the ledge of the cistern-cover. He stood on the flat, ribbed metal, his chest against the granite wall. Now he could reach up to touch the spikes guarding the support ten feet below the cheveau-de-frise.
    He listened for movement in the morning stillness of the prison below him and still heard nothing. What had seemed like half an hour on the granite surface was perhaps no more than five minutes. Two sides of the yard away from him, the roof of the death-wards now appeared almost level with his feet. For the first time, he dared to promise himself that he might be free. He felt for the spikes of the support-rail and knew that there must be minutes of pain as the price of life. First, he tore a strip of cotton from the hem of his shirt, tore it again and wrapped half round each hand.
    He checked his cry to a gasp of pain as he clenched on the wooden support. The spikes themselves were set with needle tips on every surface. With nothing else to