Colin could just see the thirtieth pillar. All morning he had been walking round and round the cellar of the Gold Reserve. His job was to yell when he saw anybody coming to steal the gold. The vaults were enormous. It took a whole day, going very quickly, to go completely round them. In the centre was the strong-room where the gold was slowly maturing in a mixture of lethal gases. This job was extremely well-paid, providing you could manage to get all the way round in a day. Colin didn’t feel that he was physically fit enough, and the vaults were too dark for him. He found himself looking back from time to time and getting behind on his time-table. He could see nothing behind him but the tiny gleaming speck of the last lamp, and nothing ahead of him but the next lamp which slowly grew larger.
The gold thieves did not come every day, but the checkpoints had to be visited at the scheduled time all the same, otherwise a fine would be deducted from his wages. The time-table had to be adhered to so that he could be ready to shout when the robbers arrived. They were men with very regular habits.
Colin’s right foot hurt. The vaults, constructed of hard artificial stone, had a rough, uneven floor. He forced himself to go on. He stumbled a little when going over the eighth white line, trying to reach the thirtieth pillar on time. He started singing as he walked, but soon refrained from his refrain because the echo made menacing mincemeat of his words and put them to all the wrong tunes.
With his legs aching, he went on unrelentingly, and passed the thirtieth pillar. He looked round automatically thinking he could see something behind him. He lost another five seconds and ran a few steps in order to catch up with himself.