u." They had lifted
him to his feet, and were assisting him towards the door....

No, Oleron couldn't understand it at all.

They got him down the stairs and along the alley. Oleron was aware of
confused angry shoutings; he gathered that a number of people wanted to
lynch somebody or other. Then his attention became fixed on a little fat
frightened-eyed man who appeared to be making a statement that an officer
was taking down in a notebook.

"I'd seen her with him ... they was often together ... she came into my
shop and said it was for him ... I thought it was all right ... 111333
the number was," the man was saying.

The people seemed to be very angry; many police were keeping them back;
but one of the inspectors had a voice that Oleron thought quite kind and
friendly. He was telling somebody to get somebody else into the cab
before something or other was brought out; and Oleron noticed that a
four-wheeler was drawn up at the gate. It appeared that it was himself
who was to be put into it; and as they lifted him up he saw that the
inspector tried to stand between him and something that stood behind the
cab, but was not quick enough to prevent Oleron seeing that this
something was a hooded stretcher. The angry voices sounded like a sea;
something hard, like a stone, hit the back of the cab; and the inspector
followed Oleron in and stood with his back to the window nearer the side
where the people were. The door they had put Oleron in at remained open,
apparently till the other inspector should come; and through the opening
Oleron had a glimpse of the hatchet-like "To Let" boards among the
privet-trees. One of them said that the key was at Number Six....

Suddenly the raging of voices was hushed. Along the entrance-alley
shuffling steps were heard, and the other inspector appeared at the
cab door.

"Right away," he said to the driver.

He entered, fastened the door after him, and blocked up the second window
with his back. Between the two inspectors Oleron slept peacefully. The
cab moved down the square, the other vehicle went up the hill. The
mortuary lay that way.

PHANTAS

_"For, barring all pother,
With this, or the other,
Still Britons are Lords of the Main._"

THE CHAPTER OF ADMIRALS

I

As Abel Keeling lay on the galleon's deck, held from rolling down it only
by his own weight and the sun-blackened hand that lay outstretched upon
the planks, his gaze wandered, but ever retu