"No, certainly not," admitted the Lay Reader.
"Otherwise—" murmured Flame with a faint gesture towards the door.
"I will help you," said the Lay Reader.
"Where is your hand?" fumbled Flame.
"Here!" attested the Lay Reader.
"Lead us to the dogs!" commanded Flame.
Now the Captain of a ship feels genuinely obligated, it would seem, to go down with his ship if tragic circumstances so insist. But he never,—so far as I've ever heard, felt the slightest obligation whatsoever to go down with another captain's ship,—to be martyred in short for any job not distinctly his own. So Bertrand Lorello,—who for the cause he served, wouldn't have hesitated an instant probably, to be torn by Hindoo lions,—devoured by South Sea cannibals,—fallen upon by a chapel spire,—trampled to death even at a church rummage sale,—saw no conceivable reason at the moment for being eaten by dogs at a purely social function.
Even groping through a balsam-scented darkness with one hand clasping the thrilly fingers of a lovely young girl, this distaste did not altogether leave him.
"This—this mush that you speak of?" he questioned quite abruptly. "With the dogs as—as nervous as you say,—so unfortunately liable to stampede? Don't you think that perhaps a little mush served first,—a good deal of mush I would say, served first,—might act as a—as a sort of anesthetic?... Somewhere in the past I am almost sure I have read that mush in sufficient quantities, you understand, is really quite a—quite an anesthetic."
Very palpably in the darkness he heard a single throaty swallow.