"You've closed the coast to him," he said, "you shut down your wires and cables, you're watching the roads, but he'll get his message through, if——"
"Then he hasn't cabled?" said Beale eagerly. "Milsom, this means liberty for you—liberty and comfort. Tell us the truth, man, help us hold off this horror that van Heerden is loosing on the world and there's no reward too great for you."
Milsom's eyes narrowed.
"It wasn't the hope of reward or hope of pardon that made me break with van Heerden," he said in his slow way. "You'd laugh yourself sick if I told you. It was—it was the knowledge that this country would be down and out; that the people who spoke my tongue and thought more or less as I thought should be under the foot of the Beast—fevered sentimentality! You don't believe that?"
"I believe it."
It was Oliva who spoke, and it appeared that this was the first time that Milsom had noticed her presence, for his eyes opened wider.
"You—oh, you believe it, do you?" and he nodded.
"But why is van Heerden waiting?" asked McNorton. "What is he waiting for?"
The big man rolled his head helplessly from side to side, and the hard cackle of his laughter was very trying to men whose nerves were raw and on edge.