which increased
with the rising wind, "you are getting absurdly fanciful."

"I think of what has just happened," said Michael steadily.
"The man has not spoken for hours; and yet he has been speaking
all the time. He fired three shots from a six-shooter and then
gave it up to us, when he might have shot us dead in our boots.
How could he express his trust in us better than that?
He wanted to be tried by us. How could he have shown it better
than by standing quite still and letting us discuss it?
He wanted to show that he stood there willingly,
and could escape if he liked. How could he have shown it
better than by escaping in the cab and coming back again?
Innocent Smith is not a madman--he is a ritualist. He wants to
express himself, not with his tongue, but with his arms and legs--
with my body I thee worship, as it says in the marriage service.
I begin to understand the old plays and pageants. I see why
the mutes at a funeral were mute. I see why the mummers were mum.
They MEANT something; and Smith means something too.
All other jokes have to be noisy--like little Nosey Gould's jokes,
for instance. The only silent jokes are the practical jokes.
Poor Smith, properly considered, is an allegorical practical joker.
What he has really done in this house has been as frantic
as a war-dance, but as silent as a picture."

"I suppose you mean," said the other dubiously, "that we have got to find out
what all these crimes meant, as if they were so many coloured picture-puzzles.
But even supposing that they do mean something--why, Lord bless my soul!--"

Taking the turn of the garden quite naturally, he had lifted
his eyes to the moon, by this time risen big and luminous,
and had seen a huge, half-human figure sitting on the garden wall.
It was outlined so sharply against the moon that for the first flash
it was hard to be certain even that it was human: the hunched
shoulders and outstanding hair had rather the air of a colossal cat.
It resembled a cat also in the fact that when first startled it
sprang up and ran with easy activity along the top of the wall.
As it ran, however, its heavy shoulders and small stooping head
rather suggested a baboon. The instant it came within reach
of a tree it made an ape-like leap and was lost in the branches.
The gale, which by this time was shaking every shrub in the garden,
made the identification yet more difficult, since it melted
the moving limbs of the fugitive in the mult