"I go now," he cried in a high arrogant voice. "But I shall come back very soon, and all our peoples will come with me, all our hungry peoples from the East. Remember that, you genelman!" And then he ran noiselessly out of the house and down the pathway to the gate.
He ran with extraordinary swiftness; so that Endicott followed him to the gate and watched him go. He flew down the road, his shadow flitting in the moonlight like a bird. Once he looked over his shoulder, and seeing Endicott at the gate he leapt into the air. A few yards farther he doubled on his steps, climbed down into the little stream beside the lane and took to the hills. And in another moment he was not. The broad and kindly fell took him to its bosom. He was too tiny an atom to stand out against that great towering slope of grass and stones. Indeed, he vanished so instantly that it seemed he must have dived into a cave. The next moment Endicott almost doubted whether he had ever been at all, whether he was not some apparition born of his own troubled brain and the Australian's talk. But, as he turned back into the house, he saw upon the flags of the garden path the marks of the man's wet, bare feet. Not only had Ahmed Ali been to the farm-house, but he had crossed the stream to get there.
Mr. Endicott went back to his table in the window and seated himself in front of his lighted candles, more from habit than with any thought of work. He felt suddenly rather tired. He had not been conscious of any fear while Ahmed Ali was in the room, or indeed of any strain. But strain, and perhaps fear, there had been. Certainly a vague fear began to get hold of him now. He had a picture before his eyes of the Asiatic leaping into the air upon the road, and then doubling for the hills. Why had he fled so fast?
"North of the Tropic of Capricorn!"
He repeated the words to himself aloud. Was the Australian right after all? And would they come from the East--those hungry people? Mr. Endicott seemed to feel the earth tremble beneath the feet of the myriads of Asia. He bent his ear and seemed to hear the distant confusion of their approach. He looked down at his papers and flicked them contemptuously. Of what use would be his fine Bill for the establishment of a Minimum Wage? Why, everything would go down--civilisation, the treasures of art, twenty centuries of man's painful growth--just as that Derby China teapot with its wonderful colour of dark blue and red and gold. The broken fragments of the teapot became a symbol to Endicott.
"And the women would go down too," he thought with a shiver. "They would take the wives."
He had come to this point in his speculations when the inner door opened, and the light broadened in the room. He heard Mrs. Tyson shuffle in, but he did not turn towards her. He sat looking out upon the fell.
"I found the lamp burning on the hall table by the letters, sir," she said, "and I thought you might want it."
"Thank you," said Endicott vaguely, and he was roused by a little gasping cry which she uttered.
"Oh, yes! I am very sorry, Mrs. Tyson. Your teapot has been knocked down. I went out. There was a man in the room when I came back. He knocked it down. Of course I'll make its value good, though I doubt if I can replace it."