"Whist now, Jackie," said the voice of Dennis Deventer at my elbow, "what's the use of using all the Lord's fine big words that are meant to embellish Scripture on the like of them? Is it not tempting Providence to be cursing fools who are sprinting hot-foot to damnation by themselves?"
"Wait—oh, wait," growled Jack Jaikes, jerking his joints till they creaked in a way he had when he was excited; "I shall make them sing to a different tune. Listen to them baying. Chief" (he turned suddenly to Dennis) "could I not just lob over half a dozen shrapnel among these cattle? They seem to be having it all their own way. Let me remind them that there's a God left in the universe."
"You've got your business to attend to, young man. Be good enough to leave your Maker's alone. He can manage His own affairs, Jack Jaikes, and has been doing so for quite a while."
Yet I understood the haste of the senior lieutenant and gangforeman. Apart from the uncompromising temperament of the Strathclyde man, it was difficult even for me to stand idle and listen to the shrieks of demoniac mirth as each new villa was attacked. In the silence of the night we could hear the crash of doors beaten in, the splintering of wood and the jangle of glass. Then came the dull rumble of many feet beating irregularly on wooden floors, the rush upstairs, the windows flung open, their green outer volets clattering against the walls, to let in the clear shining of a moon which had been full only the night before.
"What could not a score of us be doing with plenty of ammunition and our Deventer rifles?" I whispered to Jack Jaikes. He hardly looked at me. He was in the mood for anything except disobedience. He merely heaved a protesting sigh in the direction of his Chief, a sigh which was eloquent of all that he could do if he were not controlled by a higher power.
"Will our turn never come?" I asked him, as he stood and gazed, his eyes red and as if injected in the glowing of the burning buildings.
"I fear not to-night," he said, "the beasts will slink back to their lairs to deposit their loot. To-morrow night we may expect something serious for ourselves. But in any case I can't stand here hopping about like a hen on a hot plate. Let us go and see that the posts are all on the look-out."
I did not go out with him, however, instead I remained with Rhoda Polly, whom I had run downstairs to find. She told me the names of the burning houses and to whom they belonged—the Villa Mireille, built recently by a great Paris grocer—Sans Souci, that of a local sausage-maker, and so forth. All these people had long left the district, and, as I said, the smaller houses had been let to the officers of the former Imperial garrison.
Presently Dennis Deventer came and sat down beside us. Said Rhoda Polly, "Father, I never knew that we harboured such wretches among our men. Surely they do not come from the Works?"
"No," said Dennis, settling himself with his back to the chimney pots, "I rather judge we have to thank your friend Gaston Cremieux for most of these. His experience as Gambetta's Procureur made him intimately acquainted with all bad characters in Marseilles. So when he became dictator, a few executions along the Old Port, and the posting up of a warning proclamation set the whole hive of cosmopolitan ill-doers scattering northwards. I think Aramon got the cream of them, and they are now acting after their kind, sure of an immunity which they could not hope for under the rule of Gaston Cremieux."