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In their eagerness to lay first hands, on him, all the police jumped down except the chief, Dmitry Nolenki. Some fell. As those who kept their feet rushed toward us, Verbitzsky sprang up and ran to the opposite wall, with me at his heels. Three seconds later the foremost police were within fifteen feet of us. Then Verbitzsky raised his terrible bombs.
I stood on a man's back. I laid my bomb with utmost care on the wall, over which I could then see. Then I easily lifted myself out by my hands and elbows. "Good!" said Verbitzsky. "Now, Michael, stand there till I come. If they try to seize me, throw your bomb. We can all die together." In half a minute he had stepped on Nolenki's back. Nolenki groaned with abasement.
When Verbitzsky spoke again his voice seemed calmer. "Let me feel the shape," he said. "Here," said Boris, as if handing something to Verbitzsky. At that moment the outer door of the freight-shed resounded with a heavy blow. The next blow, as from a heavy maul, pounded the door open. "The police!" shouted Boris. "They must have dogged you, Alexander, for they don't suspect me."
And that offer was what caused them to follow so silently, lest other police should overhear a tumult and run to head us off. Verbitzsky, though encumbered by the bombs, kept the lead, for he was a very swift runner. I followed close at his heels.
"I am afraid," said Verbitzsky. "Why should I die for your reckless folly? Will any good happen if you explode the bombs here? You will but destroy all of us, and our friends the watchmen, and the freight-sheds containing the property of many worthy people." "You are a fool, Verbitzsky!" said his cousin. "Come here. Whisper." Something Boris then whispered in my comrade's ear.
"Don't fire! Don't shoot!" cried a voice we knew well, the voice of Dmitry Nolenki, chief of the secret police. "One of them is Verbitzsky!" he cried to his men. "The conspirator I've been after for four months. A hundred roubles for him who first seizes him! He must be taken alive!" That offer, I suppose, was what pushed them to such eagerness that they all soon felt themselves at our mercy.
But I knew we must make the threat or be captured and hung. And I felt certain that the bomb would be exploded anyway when Verbitzsky should say "Five." He would then throw his, and mine would explode by the concussion. "Two!" said Verbitzsky. Dmitry Nolenki had lowered his pistol. He glanced behind him uneasily. "If he runs, throw it!" said Verbitzsky, loudly.
I obeyed precisely, and had not fairly reached the yard's end when Verbitzsky, running very silently, came up beside me. "I think they must be still fancying that I'm standing over them," he chuckled. "No, they are shooting! Now, out they come!" From where we now stood in shadow we could see Nolenki and his men rush furiously out from under the bridge.
At that, Verbitzsky, still in the moonlight, slackened speed, half-turned as if in hesitation, then ran on more slowly, with zigzag steps, as if desperately looking for a way out. But he said to me in a low, panting voice: "We shall escape. Do exactly as I do." When the police were not fifty feet behind us, Verbitzsky jumped down about seven feet into a wide pit. I jumped to his side.
By that lamp they must have seen us clearly; for as we started to run away down the long shed they opened fire, and I stumbled over Boris Kojukhov, as he fell with a shriek. Rising, I dodged aside, thinking to avoid bullets, and then dashed against a bale of wool, one of a long row. Clambering over it, I dropped beside a man crouching on the other side. "Michael, is it you?" whispered Verbitzsky.
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