The Queen recoiled.
“What is it?” she asked. “They sound like caged lions—lions by the thousand. What is it that they say?”
“They say ‘Police!’,” said Cyril briefly. “I knew they would sooner or later. And I don’t blame them, mind you.”
“I wish my guards were here!” cried the Queen. The exhausted Psammead was panting and trembling, but the Queen’s guards in red and green garments, and brass and iron gear, choked Throgmorton Street, and bared weapons flashed round the Queen.
“I’m mad,” said a Mr Rosenbaum; “dat’s what it is—mad!”
“It’s a judgement on you, Rosy,” said his partner. “I always said you were too hard in that matter of Flowerdew. It’s a judgement, and I’m in it too.”
The members of the Stock Exchange had edged carefully away from the gleaming blades, the mailed figures, the hard, cruel Eastern faces. But Throgmorton Street is narrow, and the crowd was too thick for them to get away as quickly as they wished.
“Kill them,” cried the Queen. “Kill the dogs!”
The guards obeyed.
“It is all a dream,” cried Mr Levinstein, cowering in a doorway behind his clerk.