of his virtue. "The poor chaps may be making a mistake. Give the Colonel
a chance."

"Shall we go back, then?" asked the Professor.

"No," said Ratcliffe in a cold voice, "the street behind us is held too.
In fact, I seem to see there another friend of yours, Syme."

Syme spun round smartly, and stared backwards at the track which they
had travelled. He saw an irregular body of horsemen gathering and
galloping towards them in the gloom. He saw above the foremost saddle
the silver gleam of a sword, and then as it grew nearer the silver gleam
of an old man's hair. The next moment, with shattering violence, he had
swung the motor round and sent it dashing down the steep side street to
the sea, like a man that desired only to die.

"What the devil is up?" cried the Professor, seizing his arm.

"The morning star has fallen!" said Syme, as his own car went down the
darkness like a falling star.

The others did not understand his words, but when they looked back at
the street above they saw the hostile cavalry coming round the corner
and down the slopes after them; and foremost of all rode the good
innkeeper, flushed with the fiery innocence of the evening light.

"The world is insane!" said the Professor, and buried his face in his
hands.

"No," said Dr. Bull in adamantine humility, "it is I."

"What are we going to do?" asked the Professor.

"At this moment," said Syme, with a scientific detachment, "I think we
are going to smash into a lamppost."

The next instant the automobile had come with a catastrophic jar against
an iron object. The instant after that four men had crawled out from
under a chaos of metal, and a tall lean lamp-post that had stood up
straight on the edge of the marine parade stood out, bent and twisted,
like the branch of a broken tree.

"Well, we smashed something," said the Professor, with a faint smile.
"That's some comfort."

"You're becoming an anarchist," said Syme, dusting his clothes with his
instinct of daintiness.

"Everyone is," said Ratcliffe.

As they spoke, the white-haired horseman and his followers came
thundering from above, and almost at the same moment a dark string of
men ran shouting along the sea-front. Syme snatched a sword, and took it
in his teeth; he stuck two others under his arm-pits, took a fourth
in his left hand and the lantern in his right, and leapt off the high
parade on to the beach below.

The others leapt after him, with a common acceptance of suc