Arthur O. Friel

“ No bullets could penetrate the thick walls, and any fired through the window must pass over her. For the moment she was beyond harm.
Outside reigned bedlam. In the patio reverberated wanton shots, raucous yells, jarring thumps at closed doors. The score of men who had crossed the wall made the noise of a hundred. Farther out, all over the town, hundreds more created a cacophony worthy of a rioting army corps, the tumult of shots and shouts punctuated by the screams of terrified townspeople and the crash of shattering doors and blinds. ”

“ Within the house of Jaime Gordo, for example, circled conflicting currents of plot and counterplot, none the less intense because of their silence and secrecy. In a hammock in a rear room, whence exit was blocked save by passage through other rooms, lay a girl apparently asleep, but wide awake and fixedly determined to arise and steal forth whenever opportunity should offer; and then, having gained freedom, to open by some as yet unknown means the door of the jail. ”

“ To the taut nerves of the lone girl it suggested a gathering of bodiless spirits—malevolent ghosts of murdered men, perhaps, flocking together for some diabolical purpose. She thrust the unnerving fancy from her, tried to think that perhaps Hart and Kelly and Pablo had broken jail and were stealing to her aid. But something told her that this movement was sinister, deadly dangerous to her as well as to others. ”