“No. He knew nothing of what happened on the Ryndam. He was infatuated with me and must have talked.” She clutched his arm. “You're putting me off. You said so strangely, 'It's exactly two o'clock.' What was in your note to Varensky?” For answer he halted and pointed.
Far below in the gulf of blackness, where a moment ago there had seemed to be nothing, life had begun to quicken. In the flash of multitudinous street-lamps, a city was being born. It kindled in vivid strokes, like veins of fire etched on the pavement of the night. As though an artist were completing his design, ten thousand windows opened their pin-point eyes, filling in blank spaces with rapid specks of gold. Seen from such a height, the effect was in miniature. The very sounds which rose up were little. At first they were no more than a sustained humming, as when a hive is about to swarm. They swelled to a melodious muttering. Then, with a rush of ecstasy, the storm of joy broke; the air pulsated with the maddening clash of chimes.
She was clinging to him. “What is it? Is it the thing for which we've hoped?”
He glanced back across his shoulder at the huge pile, towering on the rock above him. Those madmen up there, destroying and pillaging, had they time to hear it? The Palace was glowing like a furnace. As he watched, a column of flame shot tall towards the sky.
Seizing her hand, he broke into a run, making all the haste he could down the steep decline. Behind them the flames crept like serpents, licking the clouds and mounting higher. The heat was like the breath of a pursuer. Night had become vivid as day. There was no concealment. The crest of the ramparts was a gigantic torch. The Danube far below was stained red as wine. Their very shadows were lurid. And still the bells across the river pealed out their joy.
There was a galloping. Riderless horses, broken loose from the stables, thundered by. Then an automobile, driven by a man with a seared and wounded face. Others followed. The crowd on foot, fleeing from its handiwork, was not far behind. As an empty car, with an officer at the wheel, slowed down at a hairpin bend, Santa and he leapt aboard.
The danger was outdistanced. They had crossed the Danube. They were scarcely likely now to be implicated in what had happened to Prince Rogo-vich. But they were still at the mercy of their reckless driver. In his panic he had not once looked around; he was unaware that he carried passengers. Hindwood knew very clearly where he wanted to go; it was probably the last place to which he would be taken. The streets of Pest near the river were solitary, but somewhere the mob was gathering. It might prove awkward to be found in the company of a uniformed Monarchist who was escaping.
Having formulated his plan, he whispered it to Santa. “While I tackle him, you grasp the wheel.” Leaning forward, he flung his arm about the man's neck, jerking him backwards. The car swerved and mounted the pavement. Santa turned it into the road again. Taken by surprise, the man offered small resistance; the struggle was short. Hindwood toppled him out, climbed into the front seat and took his place.
“The station. Where is it?” he asked breathlessly. She glanced at him with a revival of her old suspicion. “We're not leaving. Why the station?” He could have laughed. “Still the old, distrustful Santa! Little fool—the food-trains.”
The first streets which they traversed were deserted; yet lamps were lighted and the air was clamorous with belfry-music. As they drew further into the city, they shot past groups and isolated individuals, crawling in the same direction. For the most part they were the kind of persons Santa had offered to show him that morning—people in rags or entirely stark, who hobbled from weakness or dragged themselves on all fours like dogs. It was as though the dead were rising from their graves to follow the Pied Piper of the Resurrection.