‘Here, give me your pistols,’ said the blind man; ‘I’ll give the brutes what for!’
Slowly and heavily they carried Dwala out across the hall, wrapped in his blankets like a gigantic mummy; while Hartopp stood in an expectant joy of ferocity guarding the entrance. Down the kitchen passage they carried him, and out into the high-walled garden—with Lady Lillico flitting like a Banshee before them—through the stable-yard, and into the deserted street, where the van was waiting for them. Public Opinion, so rigorous once in its denunciation of ‘frontal attacks,’ seemed to have forgotten the ‘lessons of the Boer War.’ When the big door was battered down, and the furious crowd broke in, half a dozen of them fell mortally wounded before Hartopp was overpowered. The old Fence died, fighting like a tiger for his property.
What was Dwala thinking of as he lumbered slowly through the length of London in that menagerie van? Was he laughing quietly to himself at the thought that he, the saviour of England, the superhuman mind, was being hustled secretly out of England, for a trivial pride of species, as if he had committed some unspeakable crime? Was he weeping at the nearness of his separation from this handful of faithful friends? Probably not. His mind, withdrawn to the innermost darkness of the caves, was probably busy with the trivial thoughts which beset men at such times. It is only in the last moment that the soul throws off the load of little things, and, soaring like a bird, sees Life and Death spreading in their vastness beneath it. He lay still, with his eyes shut, and his temples hollow with decay. Lady Lillico was fast asleep, under a black cloak which somebody had thrown over her. The rest sat silent in the jolting twilight with their feet in the straw.
‘It’s a lesson for all of us,’ murmured Mr. Cato at last.
‘It’s that,’ said the American; ‘it p’ints a moral sharp enough to hurt.’
As Mr. Cato stood with Joey on the jetty, watching the last moments of departure, the American came to the bulwarks with Lady Wyse, and, leaning over, beckoned him.
‘“Skunk” was goin’ too fur for Huxtable. I’ve just bin tellin’ Lady Wyse; he shot himself whin the noos came. I found him lyin’ in his room.’
‘Was he dead?’ murmured Mr. Cato, awestruck at the fall of an enemy.