, and we ventured out on the tiles, and slipped down under
shelter of the parapet.

From this position a shrubbery hid the greater portion of Putney,
but we could see the river below, a bubbly mass of red weed, and the
low parts of Lambeth flooded and red. The red creeper swarmed up the
trees about the old palace, and their branches stretched gaunt and
dead, and set with shrivelled leaves, from amid its clusters. It was
strange how entirely dependent both these things were upon flowing
water for their propagation. About us neither had gained a footing;
laburnums, pink mays, snowballs, and trees of arbor-vitae, rose out of
laurels and hydrangeas, green and brilliant into the sunlight. Beyond
Kensington dense smoke was rising, and that and a blue haze hid the
northward hills.

The artilleryman began to tell me of the sort of people who still
remained in London.

"One night last week," he said, "some fools got the electric light
in order, and there was all Regent Street and the Circus ablaze,
crowded with painted and ragged drunkards, men and women, dancing and
shouting till dawn. A man who was there told me. And as the day came
they became aware of a fighting-machine standing near by the Langham
and looking down at them. Heaven knows how long he had been there.
It must have given some of them a nasty turn. He came down the road
towards them, and picked up nearly a hundred too drunk or frightened
to run away."

Grotesque gleam of a time no history will ever fully describe!

From that, in answer to my questions, he came round to his
grandiose plans again. He grew enthusiastic. He talked so eloquently
of the possibility of capturing a fighting-machine that I more than
half believed in him again. But now that I was beginning to
understand something of his quality, I could divine the stress he laid
on doing nothing precipitately. And I noted that now there was no
question that he personally was to capture and fight the great
machine.

After a time we went down to the cellar. Neither of us seemed
disposed to resume digging, and when he suggested a meal, I was
nothing loath. He became suddenly very generous, and when we had
eaten he went away and returned with some excellent cigars. We lit
these, and his optimism glowed. He was inclined to regard my coming
as a great occasion.

"There's some champagne in the cellar," he said.

"We can dig better on this Thames-side burgundy," said I.

"No," said he;