"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."
