CHAPTER XII.

THE EARTH IN ANARCHY

Urging the horses to a gallop, without respect to the rather rugged

descent of the road, the horsemen soon regained their advantage over

the men on the march, and at last the bulk of the first buildings of

Lancy cut off the sight of their pursuers. Nevertheless, the ride had

been a long one, and by the time they reached the real town the west

was warming with the colour and quality of sunset. The Colonel

suggested that, before making finally for the police station, they

should make the effort, in passing, to attach to themselves one more

individual who might be useful.

“Four out of the five rich men in this town,” he said, “are common

swindlers. I suppose the proportion is pretty equal all over the world.

The fifth is a friend of mine, and a very fine fellow; and what is even

more important from our point of view, he owns a motor-car.”

“I am afraid,” said the Professor in his mirthful way, looking back

along the white road on which the black, crawling patch might appear at

any moment, “I am afraid we have hardly time for afternoon calls.”

“Doctor Renard’s house is only three minutes off,” said the Colonel.

“Our danger,” said Dr. Bull, “is not two minutes off.”

“Yes,” said Syme, “if we ride on fast we must leave them behind, for

they are on foot.”

“He has a motor-car,” said the Colonel.

“But we may not get it,” said Bull.

“Yes, he is quite on your side.”

“But he might be out.”

“Hold your tongue,” said Syme suddenly. “What is that noise?”

For a second they all sat as still as equestrian statues, and for a

second—for two or three or four seconds—heaven and earth seemed equally

still. Then all their ears, in an agony of attention, heard along the

road that indescribable thrill and throb that means only one

thing—horses!

The Colonel’s face had an instantaneous change, as if lightning had

struck it, and yet left it scatheless.

“They have done us,” he said, with brief military irony. “Prepare to

receive cavalry!”

“Where can they have got the horses?” asked Syme, as he mechanically

urged his steed to a canter.

The Colonel was silent for a little, then he said in a strained voice—

“I was speaking with strict accuracy when I said that the ‘Soleil d’Or’

was the only place where one can get horses within twenty miles.”

“No!” said Syme violently, “I don’t believe he’d do it. Not with all

that white hair.”

“He may have been forced,” said the Colonel gently. “They must be at

least a hundred strong, for which reason we are all going to see my

friend Renard, who has a motor-car.”

With these words he swung his horse suddenly round a street corner, and

went down the street with such thundering speed, that the others,

though already well at the gallop, had difficulty in following the

flying tail of his horse.

Dr. Renard inhabited a high and comfortable house at the top of a steep

street, so that when the riders alighted at his door they could once

more see the solid green ridge of the hill, with the white road across

it, standing up above all the roofs of the town. They breathed again to

see that the road as yet was clear, and they rang the bell.

Dr. Renard was a beaming, brown-bearded man, a good example of that

silent but very busy professional class which France has preserved even

more perfectly than England. When the matter was explained to him he

pooh-poohed the panic of the ex-Marquis altogether; he said, with the

solid French scepticism, that there was no conceivable probability of a

general anarchist rising. “Anarchy,” he said, shrugging his shoulders,

“it is childishness!”

“_Et ça_,” cried out the Colonel suddenly, pointing over the other’s

shoulder, “and that is childishness, isn’t it?”

They all looked round, and saw a curve of black cavalry come sweeping

over the top of the hill with all the energy of Attila. Swiftly as they

rode, however, the whole rank still kept well together, and they could

see the black vizards of the first line as level as a line of uniforms.

But although the main black square was the same, though travelling

faster, there was now one sensational difference which they could see

clearly upon the slope of the hill, as if upon a slanted map. The bulk

of the riders were in one block; but one rider flew far ahead of the

column, and with frantic movements of hand and heel urged his horse

faster and faster, so that one might have fancied that he was not the

pursuer but the pursued. But even at that great distance they could see

something so fanatical, so unquestionable in his figure, that they knew

it was the Secretary himself. “I am sorry to cut short a cultured

discussion,” said the Colonel, “but can you lend me your motor-car now,

in two minutes?”

“I have a suspicion that you are all mad,” said Dr. Renard, smiling

sociably; “but God forbid that madness should in any way interrupt

friendship. Let us go round to the garage.”

Dr. Renard was a mild man with monstrous wealth; his rooms were like

the Musée de Cluny, and he had three motor-cars. These, however, he

seemed to use very sparingly, having the simple tastes of the French

middle class, and when his impatient friends came to examine them, it

took them some time to assure themselves that one of them even could be

made to work. This with some difficulty they brought round into the

street before the Doctor’s house. When they came out of the dim garage

they were startled to find that twilight had already fallen with the

abruptness of night in the tropics. Either they had been longer in the

place than they imagined, or some unusual canopy of cloud had gathered

over the town. They looked down the steep streets, and seemed to see a

slight mist coming up from the sea.

“It is now or never,” said Dr. Bull. “I hear horses.”

“No,” corrected the Professor, “a horse.”

And as they listened, it was evident that the noise, rapidly coming

nearer on the rattling stones, was not the noise of the whole cavalcade

but that of the one horseman, who had left it far behind—the insane

Secretary.

Syme’s family, like most of those who end in the simple life, had once

owned a motor, and he knew all about them. He had leapt at once into

the chauffeur’s seat, and with flushed face was wrenching and tugging

at the disused machinery. He bent his strength upon one handle, and

then said quite quietly—

“I am afraid it’s no go.”

As he spoke, there swept round the corner a man rigid on his rushing

horse, with the rush and rigidity of an arrow. He had a smile that

thrust out his chin as if it were dislocated. He swept alongside of the

stationary car, into which its company had crowded, and laid his hand

on the front. It was the Secretary, and his mouth went quite straight

in the solemnity of triumph.

Syme was leaning hard upon the steering wheel, and there was no sound

but the rumble of the other pursuers riding into the town. Then there

came quite suddenly a scream of scraping iron, and the car leapt

forward. It plucked the Secretary clean out of his saddle, as a knife

is whipped out of its sheath, trailed him kicking terribly for twenty

yards, and left him flung flat upon the road far in front of his

frightened horse. As the car took the corner of the street with a

splendid curve, they could just see the other anarchists filling the

street and raising their fallen leader.

“I can’t understand why it has grown so dark,” said the Professor at

last in a low voice.

“Going to be a storm, I think,” said Dr. Bull. “I say, it’s a pity we

haven’t got a light on this car, if only to see by.”

“We have,” said the Colonel, and from the floor of the car he fished up

a heavy, old-fashioned, carved iron lantern with a light inside it. It

was obviously an antique, and it would seem as if its original use had

been in some way semi-religious, for there was a rude moulding of a

cross upon one of its sides.

“Where on earth did you get that?” asked the Professor.

“I got it where I got the car,” answered the Colonel, chuckling, “from

my best friend. While our friend here was fighting with the steering

wheel, I ran up the front steps of the house and spoke to Renard, who

was standing in his own porch, you will remember. ‘I suppose,’ I said,

‘there’s no time to get a lamp.’ He looked up, blinking amiably at the

beautiful arched ceiling of his own front hall. From this was

suspended, by chains of exquisite ironwork, this lantern, one of the

hundred treasures of his treasure house. By sheer force he tore the

lamp out of his own ceiling, shattering the painted panels, and

bringing down two blue vases with his violence. Then he handed me the

iron lantern, and I put it in the car. Was I not right when I said that

Dr. Renard was worth knowing?”

“You were,” said Syme seriously, and hung the heavy lantern over the

front. There was a certain allegory of their whole position in the

contrast between the modern automobile and its strange ecclesiastical

lamp. Hitherto they had passed through the quietest part of the town,

meeting at most one or two pedestrians, who could give them no hint of

the peace or the hostility of the place. Now, however, the windows in

the houses began one by one to be lit up, giving a greater sense of

habitation and humanity. Dr. Bull turned to the new detective who had

led their flight, and permitted himself one of his natural and friendly

smiles.

“These lights make one feel more cheerful.”

Inspector Ratcliffe drew his brows together.

“There is only one set of lights that make me more cheerful,” he said,

“and they are those lights of the police station which I can see beyond

the town. Please God we may be there in ten minutes.”

Then all Bull’s boiling good sense and optimism broke suddenly out of

him.

“Oh, this is all raving nonsense!” he cried. “If you really think that

ordinary people in ordinary houses are anarchists, you must be madder

than an anarchist yourself. If we turned and fought these fellows, the

whole town would fight for us.”

“No,” said the other with an immovable simplicity, “the whole town

would fight for them. We shall see.”

While they were speaking the Professor had leant forward with sudden

excitement.

“What is that noise?” he said.

“Oh, the horses behind us, I suppose,” said the Colonel. “I thought we

had got clear of them.”

“The horses behind us! No,” said the Professor, “it is not horses, and

it is not behind us.”

Almost as he spoke, across the end of the street before them two

shining and rattling shapes shot past. They were gone almost in a

flash, but everyone could see that they were motor-cars, and the

Professor stood up with a pale face and swore that they were the other

two motor-cars from Dr. Renard’s garage.

“I tell you they were his,” he repeated, with wild eyes, “and they were

full of men in masks!”

“Absurd!” said the Colonel angrily. “Dr. Renard would never give them

his cars.”

“He may have been forced,” said Ratcliffe quietly. “The whole town is

on their side.”

“You still believe that,” asked the Colonel incredulously.

“You will all believe it soon,” said the other with a hopeless calm.

There was a puzzled pause for some little time, and then the Colonel

began again abruptly—

“No, I can’t believe it. The thing is nonsense. The plain people of a

peaceable French town—”

He was cut short by a bang and a blaze of light, which seemed close to

his eyes. As the car sped on it left a floating patch of white smoke

behind it, and Syme had heard a shot shriek past his ear.

“My God!” said the Colonel, “someone has shot at us.”

“It need not interrupt conversation,” said the gloomy Ratcliffe. “Pray

resume your remarks, Colonel. You were talking, I think, about the

plain people of a peaceable French town.”

The staring Colonel was long past minding satire. He rolled his eyes

all round the street.

“It is extraordinary,” he said, “most extraordinary.”

“A fastidious person,” said Syme, “might even call it unpleasant.

However, I suppose those lights out in the field beyond this street are

the Gendarmerie. We shall soon get there.”

“No,” said Inspector Ratcliffe, “we shall never get there.”

He had been standing up and looking keenly ahead of him. Now he sat

down and smoothed his sleek hair with a weary gesture.

“What do you mean?” asked Bull sharply.

“I mean that we shall never get there,” said the pessimist placidly.

“They have two rows of armed men across the road already; I can see

them from here. The town is in arms, as I said it was. I can only

wallow in the exquisite comfort of my own exactitude.”

And Ratcliffe sat down comfortably in the car and lit a cigarette, but

the others rose excitedly and stared down the road. Syme had slowed

down the car as their plans became doubtful, and he brought it finally

to a standstill just at the corner of a side street that ran down very

steeply to the sea.

The town was mostly in shadow, but the sun had not sunk; wherever its

level light could break through, it painted everything a burning gold.

Up this side street the last sunset light shone as sharp and narrow as

the shaft of artificial light at the theatre. It struck the car of the

five friends, and lit it like a burning chariot. But the rest of the

street, especially the two ends of it, was in the deepest twilight, and

for some seconds they could see nothing. Then Syme, whose eyes were the

keenest, broke into a little bitter whistle, and said,

“It is quite true. There is a crowd or an army or some such thing

across the end of that street.”

“Well, if there is,” said Bull impatiently, “it must be something

else—a sham fight or the mayor’s birthday or something. I cannot and

will not believe that plain, jolly people in a place like this walk

about with dynamite in their pockets. Get on a bit, Syme, and let us

look at them.”

The car crawled about a hundred yards farther, and then they were all

startled by Dr. Bull breaking into a high crow of laughter.

“Why, you silly mugs!” he cried, “what did I tell you. That crowd’s as

law-abiding as a cow, and if it weren’t, it’s on our side.”

“How do you know?” asked the professor, staring.

“You blind bat,” cried Bull, “don’t you see who is leading them?”

They peered again, and then the Colonel, with a catch in his voice,

cried out—

“Why, it’s Renard!”

There was, indeed, a rank of dim figures running across the road, and

they could not be clearly seen; but far enough in front to catch the

accident of the evening light was stalking up and down the unmistakable

Dr. Renard, in a white hat, stroking his long brown beard, and holding

a revolver in his left hand.

“What a fool I’ve been!” exclaimed the Colonel. “Of course, the dear

old boy has turned out to help us.”

Dr. Bull was bubbling over with laughter, swinging the sword in his

hand as carelessly as a cane. He jumped out of the car and ran across

the intervening space, calling out—

“Dr. Renard! Dr. Renard!”

An instant after Syme thought his own eyes had gone mad in his head.

For the philanthropic Dr. Renard had deliberately raised his revolver

and fired twice at Bull, so that the shots rang down the road.

Almost at the same second as the puff of white cloud went up from this

atrocious explosion a long puff of white cloud went up also from the

cigarette of the cynical Ratcliffe. Like all the rest he turned a

little pale, but he smiled. Dr. Bull, at whom the bullets had been

fired, just missing his scalp, stood quite still in the middle of the

road without a sign of fear, and then turned very slowly and crawled

back to the car, and climbed in with two holes through his hat.

“Well,” said the cigarette smoker slowly, “what do you think now?”

“I think,” said Dr. Bull with precision, “that I am lying in bed at No.

217 Peabody Buildings, and that I shall soon wake up with a jump; or,

if that’s not it, I think that I am sitting in a small cushioned cell

in Hanwell, and that the doctor can’t make much of my case. But if you

want to know what I don’t think, I’ll tell you. I don’t think what you

think. I don’t think, and I never shall think, that the mass of

ordinary men are a pack of dirty modern thinkers. No, sir, I’m a

democrat, and I still don’t believe that Sunday could convert one

average navvy or counter-jumper. No, I may be mad, but humanity isn’t.”

Syme turned his bright blue eyes on Bull with an earnestness which he

did not commonly make clear.

“You are a very fine fellow,” he said. “You can believe in a sanity

which is not merely your sanity. And you’re right enough about

humanity, about peasants and people like that jolly old innkeeper. But

you’re not right about Renard. I suspected him from the first. He’s

rationalistic, and, what’s worse, he’s rich. When duty and religion are

really destroyed, it will be by the rich.”

“They are really destroyed now,” said the man with a cigarette, and

rose with his hands in his pockets. “The devils are coming on!”

The men in the motor-car looked anxiously in the direction of his

dreamy gaze, and they saw that the whole regiment at the end of the

road was advancing upon them, Dr. Renard marching furiously in front,

his beard flying in the breeze.

The Colonel sprang out of the car with an intolerant exclamation.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, “the thing is incredible. It must be a practical

joke. If you knew Renard as I do—it’s like calling Queen Victoria a

dynamiter. If you had got the man’s character into your head—”

“Dr. Bull,” said Syme sardonically, “has at least got it into his hat.”

“I tell you it can’t be!” cried the Colonel, stamping.

“Renard shall explain it. He shall explain it to me,” and he strode

forward.

“Don’t be in such a hurry,” drawled the smoker. “He will very soon

explain it to all of us.”

But the impatient Colonel was already out of earshot, advancing towards

the advancing enemy. The excited Dr. Renard lifted his pistol again,

but perceiving his opponent, hesitated, and the Colonel came face to

face with him with frantic gestures of remonstrance.

“It is no good,” said Syme. “He will never get anything out of that old

heathen. I vote we drive bang through the thick of them, bang as the

bullets went through Bull’s hat. We may all be killed, but we must kill

a tidy number of them.”

“I won’t ’ave it,” said Dr. Bull, growing more vulgar in the sincerity

of his virtue. “The poor chaps may be making a mistake. Give the

Colonel a chance.”

“Shall we go back, then?” asked the Professor.

“No,” said Ratcliffe in a cold voice, “the street behind us is held

too. In fact, I seem to see there another friend of yours, Syme.”

Syme spun round smartly, and stared backwards at the track which they

had travelled. He saw an irregular body of horsemen gathering and

galloping towards them in the gloom. He saw above the foremost saddle

the silver gleam of a sword, and then as it grew nearer the silver

gleam of an old man’s hair. The next moment, with shattering violence,

he had swung the motor round and sent it dashing down the steep side

street to the sea, like a man that desired only to die.

“What the devil is up?” cried the Professor, seizing his arm.

“The morning star has fallen!” said Syme, as his own car went down the

darkness like a falling star.

The others did not understand his words, but when they looked back at

the street above they saw the hostile cavalry coming round the corner

and down the slopes after them; and foremost of all rode the good

innkeeper, flushed with the fiery innocence of the evening light.

“The world is insane!” said the Professor, and buried his face in his

hands.

“No,” said Dr. Bull in adamantine humility, “it is I.”

“What are we going to do?” asked the Professor.

“At this moment,” said Syme, with a scientific detachment, “I think we

are going to smash into a lamppost.”

The next instant the automobile had come with a catastrophic jar

against an iron object. The instant after that four men had crawled out

from under a chaos of metal, and a tall lean lamp-post that had stood

up straight on the edge of the marine parade stood out, bent and

twisted, like the branch of a broken tree.

“Well, we smashed something,” said the Professor, with a faint smile.

“That’s some comfort.”

“You’re becoming an anarchist,” said Syme, dusting his clothes with his

instinct of daintiness.

“Everyone is,” said Ratcliffe.

As they spoke, the white-haired horseman and his followers came

thundering from above, and almost at the same moment a dark string of

men ran shouting along the sea-front. Syme snatched a sword, and took

it in his teeth; he stuck two others under his arm-pits, took a fourth

in his left hand and the lantern in his right, and leapt off the high

parade on to the beach below.

The others leapt after him, with a common acceptance of such decisive

action, leaving the debris and the gathering mob above them.

“We have one more chance,” said Syme, taking the steel out of his

mouth. “Whatever all this pandemonium means, I suppose the police

station will help us. We can’t get there, for they hold the way. But

there’s a pier or breakwater runs out into the sea just here, which we

could defend longer than anything else, like Horatius and his bridge.

We must defend it till the Gendarmerie turn out. Keep after me.”

They followed him as he went crunching down the beach, and in a second

or two their boots broke not on the sea gravel, but on broad, flat

stones. They marched down a long, low jetty, running out in one arm

into the dim, boiling sea, and when they came to the end of it they

felt that they had come to the end of their story. They turned and

faced the town.

That town was transfigured with uproar. All along the high parade from

which they had just descended was a dark and roaring stream of

humanity, with tossing arms and fiery faces, groping and glaring

towards them. The long dark line was dotted with torches and lanterns;

but even where no flame lit up a furious face, they could see in the

farthest figure, in the most shadowy gesture, an organised hate. It was

clear that they were the accursed of all men, and they knew not why.

Two or three men, looking little and black like monkeys, leapt over the

edge as they had done and dropped on to the beach. These came ploughing

down the deep sand, shouting horribly, and strove to wade into the sea

at random. The example was followed, and the whole black mass of men

began to run and drip over the edge like black treacle.

Foremost among the men on the beach Syme saw the peasant who had driven

their cart. He splashed into the surf on a huge cart-horse, and shook

his axe at them.

“The peasant!” cried Syme. “They have not risen since the Middle Ages.”

“Even if the police do come now,” said the Professor mournfully, “they

can do nothing with this mob.”

“Nonsense!” said Bull desperately; “there must be some people left in

the town who are human.”

“No,” said the hopeless Inspector, “the human being will soon be

extinct. We are the last of mankind.”

“It may be,” said the Professor absently. Then he added in his dreamy

voice, “What is all that at the end of the ‘Dunciad’?

‘Nor public flame; nor private, dares to shine;

Nor human light is left, nor glimpse divine!

Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos, is restored;

Light dies before thine uncreating word:

Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall;

And universal darkness buries all.’”

“Stop!” cried Bull suddenly, “the gendarmes are out.”

The low lights of the police station were indeed blotted and broken

with hurrying figures, and they heard through the darkness the clash

and jingle of a disciplined cavalry.

“They are charging the mob!” cried Bull in ecstacy or alarm.

“No,” said Syme, “they are formed along the parade.”

“They have unslung their carbines,” cried Bull dancing with excitement.

“Yes,” said Ratcliffe, “and they are going to fire on us.”

As he spoke there came a long crackle of musketry, and bullets seemed

to hop like hailstones on the stones in front of them.

“The gendarmes have joined them!” cried the Professor, and struck his

forehead.

“I am in the padded cell,” said Bull solidly.

There was a long silence, and then Ratcliffe said, looking out over the

swollen sea, all a sort of grey purple—

“What does it matter who is mad or who is sane? We shall all be dead

soon.”

Syme turned to him and said—

“You are quite hopeless, then?”

Mr. Ratcliffe kept a stony silence; then at last he said quietly—

“No; oddly enough I am not quite hopeless. There is one insane little

hope that I cannot get out of my mind. The power of this whole planet

is against us, yet I cannot help wondering whether this one silly

little hope is hopeless yet.”

“In what or whom is your hope?” asked Syme with curiosity.

“In a man I never saw,” said the other, looking at the leaden sea.

“I know what you mean,” said Syme in a low voice, “the man in the dark

room. But Sunday must have killed him by now.”

“Perhaps,” said the other steadily; “but if so, he was the only man

whom Sunday found it hard to kill.”

“I heard what you said,” said the Professor, with his back turned. “I

also am holding hard on to the thing I never saw.”

All of a sudden Syme, who was standing as if blind with introspective

thought, swung round and cried out, like a man waking from sleep—

“Where is the Colonel? I thought he was with us!”

“The Colonel! Yes,” cried Bull, “where on earth is the Colonel?”

“He went to speak to Renard,” said the Professor.

“We cannot leave him among all those beasts,” cried Syme. “Let us die

like gentlemen if—”

“Do not pity the Colonel,” said Ratcliffe, with a pale sneer. “He is

extremely comfortable. He is—”

“No! no! no!” cried Syme in a kind of frenzy, “not the Colonel too! I

will never believe it!”

“Will you believe your eyes?” asked the other, and pointed to the

beach.

Many of their pursuers had waded into the water shaking their fists,

but the sea was rough, and they could not reach the pier. Two or three

figures, however, stood on the beginning of the stone footway, and

seemed to be cautiously advancing down it. The glare of a chance

lantern lit up the faces of the two foremost. One face wore a black

half-mask, and under it the mouth was twisting about in such a madness

of nerves that the black tuft of beard wriggled round and round like a

restless, living thing. The other was the red face and white moustache

of Colonel Ducroix. They were in earnest consultation.

“Yes, he is gone too,” said the Professor, and sat down on a stone.

“Everything’s gone. I’m gone! I can’t trust my own bodily machinery. I

feel as if my own hand might fly up and strike me.”

“When my hand flies up,” said Syme, “it will strike somebody else,” and

he strode along the pier towards the Colonel, the sword in one hand and

the lantern in the other.

As if to destroy the last hope or doubt, the Colonel, who saw him

coming, pointed his revolver at him and fired. The shot missed Syme,

but struck his sword, breaking it short at the hilt. Syme rushed on,

and swung the iron lantern above his head.

“Judas before Herod!” he said, and struck the Colonel down upon the

stones. Then he turned to the Secretary, whose frightful mouth was

almost foaming now, and held the lamp high with so rigid and arresting

a gesture, that the man was, as it were, frozen for a moment, and

forced to hear.

“Do you see this lantern?” cried Syme in a terrible voice. “Do you see

the cross carved on it, and the flame inside? You did not make it. You

did not light it. Better men than you, men who could believe and obey,

twisted the entrails of iron and preserved the legend of fire. There is

not a street you walk on, there is not a thread you wear, that was not

made as this lantern was, by denying your philosophy of dirt and rats.

You can make nothing. You can only destroy. You will destroy mankind;

you will destroy the world. Let that suffice you. Yet this one old

Christian lantern you shall not destroy. It shall go where your empire

of apes will never have the wit to find it.”

He struck the Secretary once with the lantern so that he staggered; and

then, whirling it twice round his head, sent it flying far out to sea,

where it flared like a roaring rocket and fell.

“Swords!” shouted Syme, turning his flaming face to the three behind

him. “Let us charge these dogs, for our time has come to die.”

His three companions came after him sword in hand. Syme’s sword was

broken, but he rent a bludgeon from the fist of a fisherman, flinging

him down. In a moment they would have flung themselves upon the face of

the mob and perished, when an interruption came. The Secretary, ever

since Syme’s speech, had stood with his hand to his stricken head as if

dazed; now he suddenly pulled off his black mask.

The pale face thus peeled in the lamplight revealed not so much rage as

astonishment. He put up his hand with an anxious authority.

“There is some mistake,” he said. “Mr. Syme, I hardly think you

understand your position. I arrest you in the name of the law.”

“Of the law?” said Syme, and dropped his stick.

“Certainly!” said the Secretary. “I am a detective from Scotland Yard,”

and he took a small blue card from his pocket.

“And what do you suppose we are?” asked the Professor, and threw up his

arms.

“You,” said the Secretary stiffly, “are, as I know for a fact, members

of the Supreme Anarchist Council. Disguised as one of you, I—”

Dr. Bull tossed his sword into the sea.

“There never was any Supreme Anarchist Council,” he said. “We were all

a lot of silly policemen looking at each other. And all these nice

people who have been peppering us with shot thought we were the

dynamiters. I knew I couldn’t be wrong about the mob,” he said, beaming

over the enormous multitude, which stretched away to the distance on

both sides. “Vulgar people are never mad. I’m vulgar myself, and I

know. I am now going on shore to stand a drink to everybody here.”