"My God! they've done old Toadie."
He burst through the crowd at the boy, eyes and beard ablaze.
Kit, tight-clutched in Fat George's arms, shut his eyes.
There flashed before his mind a lonely figure, bound and buffeted in the palace of a high-priest eighteen hundred years ago. He saw it, patient among its persecutors, with the eyes of perfect vision, and grew strangely calm and comforted.
These evil men appeared to him in a clearer, a purer light. For one splendid second he was sorry for them.
"Father, forgive them," he prayed, and added aloud, "Good-bye, Blob."
The voice at his ear brought him back from heaven.
"Stidy, Beardie!—You're spiling sport. Ave the Mossoos twigged anything up?"
"Nay," said Dingy Joe. "They're a'ter the naked chap."
"Then we've got this little bit o business all to ourselves, the Genelmen o the Gap Gang ave. Let's take im up among the trees, and gag im first."