Just south of Devonshire Street I stumbled and fell. Glendyne wheeled round at once and tried to keep off the pack with his pistols; but as I rose to my feet again I saw them still coming on. The moon showed up their brutal faces hardly twenty yards away. I had given myself up for lost, when Glendyne shouted: “Lie down!” and rolled me over with his hand on my shoulder while he flung himself face downwards on the road. A dazzling glare shone in my eyes and passed; and then I saw a motor swinging in the road and the squat shape of a Lewis gun projected over its side.
I turned over and saw the pack almost upon us. Then came the roll of the Lewis gun and the maniacs stopped as though they had struck some invisible barrier. Herne crashed to the ground. Lady Angela staggered, stood for a moment fumbling with her horn, and then fell face downward. The remainder of the band turned and fled into Weymouth Street.
Glendyne picked himself up and went across to Lady Angela’s body. She was quite dead, at which he seemed relieved. I understood better when I saw one of the men in the patrol car going round amongst the wounded and finishing them with his revolver.
Sanderson, the patrol leader, spoke a few words to Glendyne; and then the car swung off into Park Crescent and disappeared. The whole thing had taken only a few seconds; and we were left alone with the dead.
“It’s all right now, Flint,” said Glendyne. “They won’t dare to come back. Besides, the leaders are gone”—he kicked the negro’s body—“and they were the worst. I’ll take this as a souvenir, I think.”
He picked up the little silver horn; and I wondered what it would remind him of in later days.
It was in Park Crescent that I got my last glimpse of the new London. On the pavement, half-way round to Copeland Road Station, I saw something moving; and on examining it closely I found that it was a dying man. All about him were rats which were attacking him, while he feebly tried to keep them at bay. He was too weak to defend himself and already he had been badly bitten. There was nothing to be done; but Glendyne and I stood beside him till he died, while the rats huddled in a circle about him, waiting their chance. Glendyne kept them back by flashing his electric torch on them when they became too venturesome.
That was my last sight of London in these days; and looking back upon it, I cannot help feeling that this squalid tragedy was symbolical of greater things. The old civilisation went its way, healthy on the surface, full of life and vigour, apparently unshakable in its power. Yet all the while, at the back of it there lurked in odd corners the brutal instincts, darting into view at times for a moment and then returning into the darkness which was their home. Suddenly came the Famine: and civilisation shook, grew weaker and lost its power over men. With that, all the evil passions were unleashed and free to run abroad. Bolder and bolder they grew, till at last civilisation went down before them, feebly attempting to ward them off and failing more and more to protect itself. It was the dying man and the rats on a gigantic scale.
I came back to the Clyde Valley a very different being. Now I knew what had to be fought if our Fata Morgana was to rise on solid foundations; and the task appalled me.