Yet there happened to be no living creature on the Way, except its two chiefs. Ilam crossed the Way, and turned off it through an avenue that lay between the lecture hall and the menagerie. Carpentaria followed at a safe distance, hiding in the thick shadows as he went. From the interior of the menagerie came the subdued growls and groans of the wild beasts therein, suffering from insomnia, and longing for the jungle. Among the treasures of the menagerie was a society of twenty-seven lions, who went through a performance twice a day under their trainer, Brant, the king of lion-tamers, as he was called on the City of Pleasure programmes, and as he, in fact, was. There were also a celebrated sanguinary tiger, that had killed three men in New York, and various other delicate attractions. The nocturnal noises of these fearsome animals were sufficiently appalling. And when Ilam stopped before a little door in the south façade of the menagerie building, a cold perspiration froze the forehead and the spirit of Carpentaria. Was the man going to yield his mysterious black-enveloped burden to the lions and the tigers, the jackals and the hyenas, of that inestimable collection of African and Asiatic fauna?
But Ilam struggled onwards. And next they passed the electricity works, which was in full activity, for the manufacture of light went on night and day in the City of Pleasure. Ilam slunk along the front of the workshops, increasing his pace. Fortunately for him, the windows were seven feet from the ground, so that he could not be observed from within. The whirr of the wheels revolving incessantly in front of gigantic magnets filled the air, and from the high windows shone a steely-blue radiance, chequered by the flying shadows of machinery.
Ilam turned again, and entered the Amusements Park, and, threading his way among chutes, switchbacks, slides, and ponds, he crossed it from end to end.
“Where is he going?” Carpentaria muttered.
And then, suddenly, it occurred to Carpentaria where Ilam was going.
Behind the Amusements Park, and abutting on the confines of the City territory, was a large waste piece of ground which had been used for excavations and for refuse. In the tremendous operation of levelling the site of the City, digging foundations, and gardening in the landscape manner, much earth had been needed in one spot, and much earth had had to be removed in another. The waste piece of ground was the clearing-house of this business. In certain parts it was humped like a camel’s back, and in others it was hollowed into pits. Immense quantities of soil lay loose, and there were, besides, barrows and spades in abundance.
Arrived in the midst of this sterile wilderness, Ilam unceremoniously dropped his burden near a miniature mountain, which raised itself by the side of a miniature pit. He then found a spade, and, having tested the looseness of the soil, took up the black mystery and slipped it carefully into the pit. Then he climbed with the spade on to the summit of the hillock, and began to push the soil from the hillock into the pit. It proved to be the simplest thing in the world. In five minutes the burden of Ilam lay under several feet of soil.
Carpentaria, favoured by the nature of the spot, had crept closer.
“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!” he heard Ilam reciting. Amazing phenomenon! But nothing can be more amazing than the behaviour of an utterly respectable man when he is committing a crime!
The affair finished, Ilam departed, passing within a few feet of Carpentaria, who stretched himself flat on the ground to avoid detection.