CHAPTER XIII.

THE PURSUIT OF THE PRESIDENT

Next morning five bewildered but hilarious people took the boat for

Dover. The poor old Colonel might have had some cause to complain,

having been first forced to fight for two factions that didn’t exist,

and then knocked down with an iron lantern. But he was a magnanimous

old gentleman, and being much relieved that neither party had anything

to do with dynamite, he saw them off on the pier with great geniality.

The five reconciled detectives had a hundred details to explain to each

other. The Secretary had to tell Syme how they had come to wear masks

originally in order to approach the supposed enemy as

fellow-conspirators.

Syme had to explain how they had fled with such swiftness through a

civilised country. But above all these matters of detail which could be

explained, rose the central mountain of the matter that they could not

explain. What did it all mean? If they were all harmless officers, what

was Sunday? If he had not seized the world, what on earth had he been

up to? Inspector Ratcliffe was still gloomy about this.

“I can’t make head or tail of old Sunday’s little game any more than

you can,” he said. “But whatever else Sunday is, he isn’t a blameless

citizen. Damn it! do you remember his face?”

“I grant you,” answered Syme, “that I have never been able to forget

it.”

“Well,” said the Secretary, “I suppose we can find out soon, for

tomorrow we have our next general meeting. You will excuse me,” he

said, with a rather ghastly smile, “for being well acquainted with my

secretarial duties.”

“I suppose you are right,” said the Professor reflectively. “I suppose

we might find it out from him; but I confess that I should feel a bit

afraid of asking Sunday who he really is.”

“Why,” asked the Secretary, “for fear of bombs?”

“No,” said the Professor, “for fear he might tell me.”

“Let us have some drinks,” said Dr. Bull, after a silence.

Throughout their whole journey by boat and train they were highly

convivial, but they instinctively kept together. Dr. Bull, who had

always been the optimist of the party, endeavoured to persuade the

other four that the whole company could take the same hansom cab from

Victoria; but this was overruled, and they went in a four-wheeler,

with Dr. Bull on the box, singing. They finished their journey at an

hotel in Piccadilly Circus, so as to be close to the early breakfast

next morning in Leicester Square. Yet even then the adventures of the

day were not entirely over. Dr. Bull, discontented with the general

proposal to go to bed, had strolled out of the hotel at about eleven to

see and taste some of the beauties of London. Twenty minutes

afterwards, however, he came back and made quite a clamour in the hall.

Syme, who tried at first to soothe him, was forced at last to listen to

his communication with quite new attention.

“I tell you I’ve seen him!” said Dr. Bull, with thick emphasis.

“Whom?” asked Syme quickly. “Not the President?”

“Not so bad as that,” said Dr. Bull, with unnecessary laughter, “not so

bad as that. I’ve got him here.”

“Got whom here?” asked Syme impatiently.

“Hairy man,” said the other lucidly, “man that used to be hairy

man—Gogol. Here he is,” and he pulled forward by a reluctant elbow the

identical young man who five days before had marched out of the Council

with thin red hair and a pale face, the first of all the sham

anarchists who had been exposed.

“Why do you worry with me?” he cried. “You have expelled me as a spy.”

“We are all spies!” whispered Syme.

“We’re all spies!” shouted Dr. Bull. “Come and have a drink.”

Next morning the battalion of the reunited six marched stolidly towards

the hotel in Leicester Square.

“This is more cheerful,” said Dr. Bull; “we are six men going to ask

one man what he means.”

“I think it is a bit queerer than that,” said Syme. “I think it is six

men going to ask one man what they mean.”

They turned in silence into the Square, and though the hotel was in the

opposite corner, they saw at once the little balcony and a figure that

looked too big for it. He was sitting alone with bent head, poring over

a newspaper. But all his councillors, who had come to vote him down,

crossed that Square as if they were watched out of heaven by a hundred

eyes.

They had disputed much upon their policy, about whether they should

leave the unmasked Gogol without and begin diplomatically, or whether

they should bring him in and blow up the gunpowder at once. The

influence of Syme and Bull prevailed for the latter course, though the

Secretary to the last asked them why they attacked Sunday so rashly.

“My reason is quite simple,” said Syme. “I attack him rashly because I

am afraid of him.”

They followed Syme up the dark stair in silence, and they all came out

simultaneously into the broad sunlight of the morning and the broad

sunlight of Sunday’s smile.

“Delightful!” he said. “So pleased to see you all. What an exquisite

day it is. Is the Czar dead?”

The Secretary, who happened to be foremost, drew himself together for a

dignified outburst.

“No, sir,” he said sternly “there has been no massacre. I bring you

news of no such disgusting spectacles.”

“Disgusting spectacles?” repeated the President, with a bright,

inquiring smile. “You mean Dr. Bull’s spectacles?”

The Secretary choked for a moment, and the President went on with a

sort of smooth appeal—

“Of course, we all have our opinions and even our eyes, but really to

call them disgusting before the man himself—”

Dr. Bull tore off his spectacles and broke them on the table.

“My spectacles are blackguardly,” he said, “but I’m not. Look at my

face.”

“I dare say it’s the sort of face that grows on one,” said the

President, “in fact, it grows on you; and who am I to quarrel with the

wild fruits upon the Tree of Life? I dare say it will grow on me some

day.”

“We have no time for tomfoolery,” said the Secretary, breaking in

savagely. “We have come to know what all this means. Who are you? What

are you? Why did you get us all here? Do you know who and what we are?

Are you a half-witted man playing the conspirator, or are you a clever

man playing the fool? Answer me, I tell you.”

“Candidates,” murmured Sunday, “are only required to answer eight out

of the seventeen questions on the paper. As far as I can make out, you

want me to tell you what I am, and what you are, and what this table

is, and what this Council is, and what this world is for all I know.

Well, I will go so far as to rend the veil of one mystery. If you want

to know what you are, you are a set of highly well-intentioned young

jackasses.”

“And you,” said Syme, leaning forward, “what are you?”

“I? What am I?” roared the President, and he rose slowly to an

incredible height, like some enormous wave about to arch above them and

break. “You want to know what I am, do you? Bull, you are a man of

science. Grub in the roots of those trees and find out the truth about

them. Syme, you are a poet. Stare at those morning clouds. But I tell

you this, that you will have found out the truth of the last tree and

the top-most cloud before the truth about me. You will understand the

sea, and I shall be still a riddle; you shall know what the stars are,

and not know what I am. Since the beginning of the world all men have

hunted me like a wolf—kings and sages, and poets and lawgivers, all the

churches, and all the philosophies. But I have never been caught yet,

and the skies will fall in the time I turn to bay. I have given them a

good run for their money, and I will now.”

Before one of them could move, the monstrous man had swung himself like

some huge ourang-outang over the balustrade of the balcony. Yet before

he dropped he pulled himself up again as on a horizontal bar, and

thrusting his great chin over the edge of the balcony, said solemnly—

“There’s one thing I’ll tell you though about who I am. I am the man in

the dark room, who made you all policemen.”

With that he fell from the balcony, bouncing on the stones below like a

great ball of india-rubber, and went bounding off towards the corner of

the Alhambra, where he hailed a hansom-cab and sprang inside it. The

six detectives had been standing thunderstruck and livid in the light

of his last assertion; but when he disappeared into the cab, Syme’s

practical senses returned to him, and leaping over the balcony so

recklessly as almost to break his legs, he called another cab.

He and Bull sprang into the cab together, the Professor and the

Inspector into another, while the Secretary and the late Gogol

scrambled into a third just in time to pursue the flying Syme, who was

pursuing the flying President. Sunday led them a wild chase towards the

north-west, his cabman, evidently under the influence of more than

common inducements, urging the horse at breakneck speed. But Syme was

in no mood for delicacies, and he stood up in his own cab shouting,

“Stop thief!” until crowds ran along beside his cab, and policemen

began to stop and ask questions. All this had its influence upon the

President’s cabman, who began to look dubious, and to slow down to a

trot. He opened the trap to talk reasonably to his fare, and in so

doing let the long whip droop over the front of the cab. Sunday leant

forward, seized it, and jerked it violently out of the man’s hand. Then

standing up in front of the cab himself, he lashed the horse and roared

aloud, so that they went down the streets like a flying storm. Through

street after street and square after square went whirling this

preposterous vehicle, in which the fare was urging the horse and the

driver trying desperately to stop it. The other three cabs came after

it (if the phrase be permissible of a cab) like panting hounds. Shops

and streets shot by like rattling arrows.

At the highest ecstacy of speed, Sunday turned round on the splashboard

where he stood, and sticking his great grinning head out of the cab,

with white hair whistling in the wind, he made a horrible face at his

pursuers, like some colossal urchin. Then raising his right hand

swiftly, he flung a ball of paper in Syme’s face and vanished. Syme

caught the thing while instinctively warding it off, and discovered

that it consisted of two crumpled papers. One was addressed to himself,

and the other to Dr. Bull, with a very long, and it is to be feared

partly ironical, string of letters after his name. Dr. Bull’s address

was, at any rate, considerably longer than his communication, for the

communication consisted entirely of the words:—

“What about Martin Tupper _now?_”

“What does the old maniac mean?” asked Bull, staring at the words.

“What does yours say, Syme?”

Syme’s message was, at any rate, longer, and ran as follows:—

“No one would regret anything in the nature of an interference by the

Archdeacon more than I. I trust it will not come to that. But, for the

last time, where are your goloshes? The thing is too bad, especially

after what uncle said.”

The President’s cabman seemed to be regaining some control over his

horse, and the pursuers gained a little as they swept round into the

Edgware Road. And here there occurred what seemed to the allies a

providential stoppage. Traffic of every kind was swerving to right or

left or stopping, for down the long road was coming the unmistakable

roar announcing the fire-engine, which in a few seconds went by like a

brazen thunderbolt. But quick as it went by, Sunday had bounded out of

his cab, sprung at the fire-engine, caught it, slung himself on to it,

and was seen as he disappeared in the noisy distance talking to the

astonished fireman with explanatory gestures.

“After him!” howled Syme. “He can’t go astray now. There’s no mistaking

a fire-engine.”

The three cabmen, who had been stunned for a moment, whipped up their

horses and slightly decreased the distance between themselves and their

disappearing prey. The President acknowledged this proximity by coming

to the back of the car, bowing repeatedly, kissing his hand, and

finally flinging a neatly-folded note into the bosom of Inspector

Ratcliffe. When that gentleman opened it, not without impatience, he

found it contained the words:—

“Fly at once. The truth about your trouser-stretchers is known.—A

FRIEND.”

The fire-engine had struck still farther to the north, into a region

that they did not recognise; and as it ran by a line of high railings

shadowed with trees, the six friends were startled, but somewhat

relieved, to see the President leap from the fire-engine, though

whether through another whim or the increasing protest of his

entertainers they could not see. Before the three cabs, however, could

reach up to the spot, he had gone up the high railings like a huge grey

cat, tossed himself over, and vanished in a darkness of leaves.

Syme with a furious gesture stopped his cab, jumped out, and sprang

also to the escalade. When he had one leg over the fence and his

friends were following, he turned a face on them which shone quite pale

in the shadow.

“What place can this be?” he asked. “Can it be the old devil’s house?

I’ve heard he has a house in North London.”

“All the better,” said the Secretary grimly, planting a foot in a

foothold, “we shall find him at home.”

“No, but it isn’t that,” said Syme, knitting his brows. “I hear the

most horrible noises, like devils laughing and sneezing and blowing

their devilish noses!”

“His dogs barking, of course,” said the Secretary.

“Why not say his black-beetles barking!” said Syme furiously, “snails

barking! geraniums barking! Did you ever hear a dog bark like that?”

He held up his hand, and there came out of the thicket a long growling

roar that seemed to get under the skin and freeze the flesh—a low

thrilling roar that made a throbbing in the air all about them.

“The dogs of Sunday would be no ordinary dogs,” said Gogol, and

shuddered.

Syme had jumped down on the other side, but he still stood listening

impatiently.

“Well, listen to that,” he said, “is that a dog—anybody’s dog?”

There broke upon their ear a hoarse screaming as of things protesting

and clamouring in sudden pain; and then, far off like an echo, what

sounded like a long nasal trumpet.

“Well, his house ought to be hell!” said the Secretary; “and if it is

hell, I’m going in!” and he sprang over the tall railings almost with

one swing.

The others followed. They broke through a tangle of plants and shrubs,

and came out on an open path. Nothing was in sight, but Dr. Bull

suddenly struck his hands together.

“Why, you asses,” he cried, “it’s the Zoo!”

As they were looking round wildly for any trace of their wild quarry, a

keeper in uniform came running along the path with a man in plain

clothes.

“Has it come this way?” gasped the keeper.

“Has what?” asked Syme.

“The elephant!” cried the keeper. “An elephant has gone mad and run

away!”

“He has run away with an old gentleman,” said the other stranger

breathlessly, “a poor old gentleman with white hair!”

“What sort of old gentleman?” asked Syme, with great curiosity.

“A very large and fat old gentleman in light grey clothes,” said the

keeper eagerly.

“Well,” said Syme, “if he’s that particular kind of old gentleman, if

you’re quite sure that he’s a large and fat old gentleman in grey

clothes, you may take my word for it that the elephant has not run away

with him. He has run away with the elephant. The elephant is not made

by God that could run away with him if he did not consent to the

elopement. And, by thunder, there he is!”

There was no doubt about it this time. Clean across the space of grass,

about two hundred yards away, with a crowd screaming and scampering

vainly at his heels, went a huge grey elephant at an awful stride, with

his trunk thrown out as rigid as a ship’s bowsprit, and trumpeting like

the trumpet of doom. On the back of the bellowing and plunging animal

sat President Sunday with all the placidity of a sultan, but goading

the animal to a furious speed with some sharp object in his hand.

“Stop him!” screamed the populace. “He’ll be out of the gate!”

“Stop a landslide!” said the keeper. “He is out of the gate!”

And even as he spoke, a final crash and roar of terror announced that

the great grey elephant had broken out of the gates of the Zoological

Gardens, and was careening down Albany Street like a new and swift sort

of omnibus.

“Great Lord!” cried Bull, “I never knew an elephant could go so fast.

Well, it must be hansom-cabs again if we are to keep him in sight.”

As they raced along to the gate out of which the elephant had vanished,

Syme felt a glaring panorama of the strange animals in the cages which

they passed. Afterwards he thought it queer that he should have seen

them so clearly. He remembered especially seeing pelicans, with their

preposterous, pendant throats. He wondered why the pelican was the

symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity

to admire a pelican. He remembered a hornbill, which was simply a huge

yellow beak with a small bird tied on behind it. The whole gave him a

sensation, the vividness of which he could not explain, that Nature was

always making quite mysterious jokes. Sunday had told them that they

would understand him when they had understood the stars. He wondered

whether even the archangels understood the hornbill.

The six unhappy detectives flung themselves into cabs and followed the

elephant sharing the terror which he spread through the long stretch of

the streets. This time Sunday did not turn round, but offered them the

solid stretch of his unconscious back, which maddened them, if

possible, more than his previous mockeries. Just before they came to

Baker Street, however, he was seen to throw something far up into the

air, as a boy does a ball meaning to catch it again. But at their rate

of racing it fell far behind, just by the cab containing Gogol; and in

faint hope of a clue or for some impulse unexplainable, he stopped his

cab so as to pick it up. It was addressed to himself, and was quite a

bulky parcel. On examination, however, its bulk was found to consist of

thirty-three pieces of paper of no value wrapped one round the other.

When the last covering was torn away it reduced itself to a small slip

of paper, on which was written:—

“The word, I fancy, should be ‘pink’.”

The man once known as Gogol said nothing, but the movements of his

hands and feet were like those of a man urging a horse to renewed

efforts.

Through street after street, through district after district, went the

prodigy of the flying elephant, calling crowds to every window, and

driving the traffic left and right. And still through all this insane

publicity the three cabs toiled after it, until they came to be

regarded as part of a procession, and perhaps the advertisement of a

circus. They went at such a rate that distances were shortened beyond

belief, and Syme saw the Albert Hall in Kensington when he thought that

he was still in Paddington. The animal’s pace was even more fast and

free through the empty, aristocratic streets of South Kensington, and

he finally headed towards that part of the sky-line where the enormous

Wheel of Earl’s Court stood up in the sky. The wheel grew larger and

larger, till it filled heaven like the wheel of stars.

The beast outstripped the cabs. They lost him round several corners,

and when they came to one of the gates of the Earl’s Court Exhibition

they found themselves finally blocked. In front of them was an enormous

crowd; in the midst of it was an enormous elephant, heaving and

shuddering as such shapeless creatures do. But the President had

disappeared.

“Where has he gone to?” asked Syme, slipping to the ground.

“Gentleman rushed into the Exhibition, sir!” said an official in a

dazed manner. Then he added in an injured voice: “Funny gentleman, sir.

Asked me to hold his horse, and gave me this.”

He held out with distaste a piece of folded paper, addressed: “To the

Secretary of the Central Anarchist Council.”

The Secretary, raging, rent it open, and found written inside it:—

“When the herring runs a mile,

Let the Secretary smile;

When the herring tries to _fly_,

Let the Secretary die.

Rustic Proverb.”

“Why the eternal crikey,” began the Secretary, “did you let the man in?

Do people commonly come to your Exhibition riding on mad elephants?

Do—”

“Look!” shouted Syme suddenly. “Look over there!”

“Look at what?” asked the Secretary savagely.

“Look at the captive balloon!” said Syme, and pointed in a frenzy.

“Why the blazes should I look at a captive balloon?” demanded the

Secretary. “What is there queer about a captive balloon?”

“Nothing,” said Syme, “except that it isn’t captive!”

They all turned their eyes to where the balloon swung and swelled above

the Exhibition on a string, like a child’s balloon. A second afterwards

the string came in two just under the car, and the balloon, broken

loose, floated away with the freedom of a soap bubble.

“Ten thousand devils!” shrieked the Secretary. “He’s got into it!” and

he shook his fists at the sky.

The balloon, borne by some chance wind, came right above them, and they

could see the great white head of the President peering over the side

and looking benevolently down on them.

“God bless my soul!” said the Professor with the elderly manner that he

could never disconnect from his bleached beard and parchment face. “God

bless my soul! I seemed to fancy that something fell on the top of my

hat!”

He put up a trembling hand and took from that shelf a piece of twisted

paper, which he opened absently only to find it inscribed with a true

lover’s knot and, the words:—

“Your beauty has not left me indifferent.—From LITTLE SNOWDROP.”

There was a short silence, and then Syme said, biting his beard—

“I’m not beaten yet. The blasted thing must come down somewhere. Let’s

follow it!”