Still, numbers were beginning to pour into the far end of the hall out from the concert-room, where the alarm was just spreading and playing the deuce with the new opera. As we ran through and down the steps to the right, I could hear the band still playing and some one singing. Then, evidently, the alarm reached the instrumentalists, for they stopped suddenly with a wheeze, like a musical box run down.
Down the steps we rushed, knocking some few of both sexes, I am ashamed to say, over and aside in our stride. Out of the watchful corner of my right eye I saw the waiters come running out of the “Café de Paris,” in their white aprons.
Outside, as we turned the corner of the building, to the left down on to the terrace, one or two firemen came bounding up the steps to meet us. One of them faced us, holding out his arms and saying something in French I didn’t catch.
It was addressed to Barker, whose only reply was to grunt and knock the man head over heels into a heap of cactus. Hating violence as I do, I am pleased to report it was absolutely the only blow struck the whole time, and was a singularly efficient one.
At the bottom of the steps to the right we darted, so close together we might have been almost covered with a pocket-handkerchief, of the larger Derby-winner type.
“Get in front, you men!” panted Brentin, in a sibilant whisper. “Take the first boat, this way!”
The sailors plunged in front as Brentin pulled the gate open. Down the steps they clattered. One of them, as he passed me, I saw was trying to tie the tape round the neck of his linen bag with his teeth.
And now furious steps were rushing after us over the gravel of the terrace; menacing dark figures, many of them, were making for our gate.
“Give ’em a fusillade!” hissed Hines, and turning we fired, each of us, pretty nearly the whole of our six blank barrels.
From that moment our retreat, which had hitherto been conducted in such beautiful order, became as loose and streaming as the tail of a comet. As for me, I fired most of my six barrels as I ran down the steps, straight over my head, anywhere. I can feel now the soft kick of my revolver as I held it loosely in my left hand.