fe quietly. "The whole town is on
their side."

"You still believe that," asked the Colonel incredulously.

"You will all believe it soon," said the other with a hopeless calm.

There was a puzzled pause for some little time, and then the Colonel
began again abruptly--

"No, I can't believe it. The thing is nonsense. The plain people of a
peaceable French town--"

He was cut short by a bang and a blaze of light, which seemed close to
his eyes. As the car sped on it left a floating patch of white smoke
behind it, and Syme had heard a shot shriek past his ear.

"My God!" said the Colonel, "someone has shot at us."

"It need not interrupt conversation," said the gloomy Ratcliffe. "Pray
resume your remarks, Colonel. You were talking, I think, about the plain
people of a peaceable French town."

The staring Colonel was long past minding satire. He rolled his eyes all
round the street.

"It is extraordinary," he said, "most extraordinary."

"A fastidious person," said Syme, "might even call it unpleasant.
However, I suppose those lights out in the field beyond this street are
the Gendarmerie. We shall soon get there."

"No," said Inspector Ratcliffe, "we shall never get there."

He had been standing up and looking keenly ahead of him. Now he sat down
and smoothed his sleek hair with a weary gesture.

"What do you mean?" asked Bull sharply.

"I mean that we shall never get there," said the pessimist placidly.
"They have two rows of armed men across the road already; I can see them
from here. The town is in arms, as I said it was. I can only wallow in
the exquisite comfort of my own exactitude."

And Ratcliffe sat down comfortably in the car and lit a cigarette, but
the others rose excitedly and stared down the road. Syme had slowed down
the car as their plans became doubtful, and he brought it finally to
a standstill just at the corner of a side street that ran down very
steeply to the sea.

The town was mostly in shadow, but the sun had not sunk; wherever its
level light could break through, it painted everything a burning gold.
Up this side street the last sunset light shone as sharp and narrow as
the shaft of artificial light at the theatre. It struck the car of the
five friends, and lit it like a burning chariot. But the rest of the
street, especially the two ends of it, was in the deepest twilight, and
for some seconds they could see nothing. Then Syme, whose eyes were the
keenest, broke into a little