“Can’t make peace with the President now—can’t give him up the Chairman alive. Thomas Wells took the Chairman prisoner and cut his throat.” Then he added with a sort of dreadful reflectiveness: “Thomas Wells always did say that he believed in making sure.” And so, having delivered what was perhaps his ultimate pronouncement on statecraft, he resumed his former position, motionless, except that now and then a violent fit of shivering shook him from head to foot. Behind the little group the houses in Piccadilly burned up higher and painted lurid colors on the sky, and away on the other side of the Treasury a great fountain of golden sparks, dancing and gyrating, showed that one of the houses on the Embankment, apparently Henry Watkins’ house, had now been fired. But in the garden the shadows only wavered and flickered feebly, and the noise of the flames, and of the looting of fleeing crowds, came incredibly thin and gentle. Jeremy and Eva and the Speaker seemed in this obscurity to have been sheltered away from the violence of the world in a little haven of miraculous calm, the walls of which, however, were yet as tenuous and unstable as those of a soap-bubble.
Jeremy pondered again, while his companions silently and expectantly regarded him. After a minute he said in a very gentle tone: “Eva, I know so little ... if we could get down to the coast, do you think we could find a boat to take us over to France?”
“I think so,” she replied doubtfully. “I know that there are boats that go to France, of course. But what shall we do when we get there?”
“I don’t know. I shall find some way of looking after you. But anyway, we must do that because there’s nothing else for us to do, unless we give ourselves up.”
“I won’t be taken by Thomas Wells,” she said, with a catch in her voice.
Jeremy set his teeth hard to keep back his exclamation. “We’ll do that,” he assured her firmly. “But first of all we must go back to the house and get things to take with us.”
They found their way in silence through the gardens, Jeremy leading one horse and the Speaker the other and Eva walking by Jeremy, holding his free hand. They searched the stables first, and there, to their delight, found two fresh horses, strong, ugly beasts, not elegant enough for the Speaker’s carriage or to go with the army, but very suitable for such a journey as was now proposed. They also found a lantern which Jeremy took with him into the Treasury. He returned after a while with a supply of bread and meat and some clothes. Then they went as quietly as possible around to the courtyard, there to make their preparations.
Eva helped Jeremy to pack the saddle-bags, while he explained his intentions to her. The coast round the mouth of the Thames, he thought, and probably as far as Dover, would be overrun at once by the Welsh invaders, and it would be fatal for them to go in that direction. He therefore proposed to double west, strike across Sussex, and make for one of the Channel ports there or farther on in Hampshire. He thought that he could find his way, and that if they made haste they would escape pursuit. His plans beyond that were of the vaguest: he supposed that in the end he could put his mechanical knowledge to some use. Perhaps later on they might even return to England, if the country remained unsettled, and assert the Speaker’s claims against the usurpers. As he uttered this cloudy fragment of comfort he thought of the wandering Stuarts and chuckled to himself, sourly but half-hysterically, at finding himself in so romantic a situation.
Meanwhile the Speaker sat crouched, where Jeremy had placed him, on an old mounting-stone in the courtyard, muttering continuously under his breath. When all was ready for their departure, Jeremy went over to him, arranged a cloak to hide his conspicuous face and beard, and put a hand under his arm to raise him up. The old man stiffly acquiesced, still mumbling.
“What did you say, sir?” Jeremy asked gently.