'How about trying to break out now?' Kenyon suggested.
Silas Gonderport Harker shook his cherubic head. 'Not a hope; we'd never get a hundred yards.'
Over the heads of the crowd they watched the occupant of the car, a tall, lean, elderly man with a lined aesthetic face. He showed no trace of fear or excitement but produced an automatic and with the utmost calmness fired three times, once to the front over his chauffeur's shoulder, then swiftly once through each side window of the car. The bullets drilled neat round holes through the glass, and each one killed a man. The mob snarled with rage but gave back instantly, cowering with fear one against the other. With a sudden jerk the car bumped over two more of the bodies and sped on.
Almost before it was out of sight another car came in view, and the crowd greeted it with a roar of savage hate; the driver, a young man in a soft hat, hesitated and slowed down. A woman stooped and picking up a small bronze ornament from the gutter hurled it at him. It struck the young man full in the face; his head lolled stupidly for a second and then the car swerved violently, ran on to the pavement, and crashed through the window of a shop. A man was pinned between the bonnet and the framework, his head gushing blood from the cuts of the splintered glass; his screams, and those of the other people who had been run down could have been heard half a mile away, yet no one paid any attention to them; they were dragging the occupants from the back of the car; an old man, a fat woman, and a girl.
'Oh, can't we help them?' Ann clutched at Kenyon's arm, but almost before she had finished speaking the girl had disappeared, thrown down and trampled upon by a hundred feet. The old man went next, struck on the back of the head by a bottle. His eyes goggled stupidly, staring out of a fleshy white face for a second, then he sank from view; but the fat woman survived for three or four minutes. She swung a weighty bag, driving her aggressors from her by striking them with it in the face, but hands clawed at her from all sides and her clothes were ripped to ribbons; a malicious urchin kneeling behind her lugged at her skirt, the fastening broke and it descended to her ankles revealing a bright blue petticoat. He seized that too and wrenched it to the ground.
Suddenly she kicked herself free of the clothes around her feet and leaving a large portion of her pink silk blouse in the hands of a vicious shrew, broke away from her tormentors. With amazing swiftness for her bulk she pelted down the street, naked to the waist, her legs encased in a pair of frilly calico drawers; she presented a ludicrous, but pathetic and terrifying sight. Rivulets of blood coursed down her shoulders and tears gushed from her eyes; before she had gone twenty yards she was tripped and fell. The mob closed in on her and kicked the great unwieldy body into shuddering immobility.
'Hunted like hares!' whispered Kenyon.
'What say?' asked the American.
'Nothing.' Kenyon was thinking of his father's prediction and wondering where he was now; safe at Windsor, or already fallen a prey to the blind resentment of the people against the ruling caste which had allowed things to drift into this terrible pass.
The car had been pillaged before the fat woman fell, and now the sullen, angry faces in the street were turned up to the windows again. Like a savage inhuman herd they stampeded across the road and into the shop below. Fighting began on the stairway while Kenyon and Bob tore down the over mantel and curtain rods to hurl from the windows.
'Burn them!' yelled a shrill voiced woman suddenly. 'Why don't yer burn 'em.' The cry was taken up; the street seemed to rock under the reiterated howling of the mass. 'Burn 'em burn 'em! The blasted Greyshirt swine!
Kenyon caught a glimpse of Ann's face, drawn and haggard with unnaturally bright eyes. He fumbled for her hand and pressed it. 'I'm sorry, Ann, terribly sorry that I bought you into this.'
She smiled, frightened, but trying to remain courageous. 'It wasn't your fault. I'm quite all right.'
Veronica joined them. She held an unlighted cigarette between her fingers. 'Kenyon,' her voice was quite even, 'got a match?'
He produced a lighter. 'How long,' she asked, 'do you think we've got?'
'Not long,' he confessed. 'If they do set fire to the place we'll have to try and fight our way out, but Anyhow, I wish to God I'd taken you out of London last night.' The moment he had spoken he regretted his words, for the delay of course was due to Ann, but she still held his hand and now she pressed it.
'I'm sorry, Veronica; I've been an awful fool,' she said.
'Darling, I could not have borne it without another woman!' Veronica announced, puffing at her cigarette; which was a lie anyhow, since she hated the presence of other women if there were men about.
Silas Harker hurried in from the landing. For the first time his placid cheerful face showed real anxiety. 'We're sunk!' he exclaimed to Kenyon, 'they've just set the staircase on fire!'
'Turn on the tap in the bathroom and flood the house,' suggested Veronica.
'There is no bathroom in a place like this,' the American answered tersely, 'and we're for the golden shore unless we can think of something quick!' Without waiting for a reply he left them again and as he opened the door a cloud of smoke billowed into the room.
The acrid fumes caught Veronica in the throat; she coughed and spluttered. 'What shall we do, Kenyon? For God's sake say something; we can't stay here to be burnt alive!'
Wreaths of smoke were creeping under the floor, filtering into the room so quickly that it was already difficult for them to see out of their smarting eyes. It could only be a matter of minutes before they would be driven into jumping from the windows to be seized upon and kicked to death by the frantic crowd below.
At his wits' end Kenyon moved back to the windows; as he leant out a lump of coal sailed past his head. It was not more than a twelve foot drop to the ground, but the mob stayed there angry, expectant.
'Hark!' he exclaimed, drawing in his head. As they listened a faint rat tat- tat came to their ears. 'Machine guns!' he added suddenly.
'Soldiers!' supplemented Bob. 'If only they're coming this way.'
A low sullen roar like an angry sea came to them from the distance; then the staccato rattle of a machine gun again, clearer now; a sudden hush had fallen on the crowd outside.
The machine guns barked again, the sound coming sharp on the night air. Harker came running in. 'The Tommies! he cried, 'd'you hear them? and they're corning down the street.'
Then Kenyon, craning out of the window, saw the first lorry. It was packed with khaki figures, their bayonets glimmering in the uncertain light as they stabbed at the boldest of the rioters who were trying to cling to the sides and back of the van. It rumbled below the window. Ann, Veronica, and Kenyon leaned out and shouted. 'Help! Hi! Help!'
One soldier looked up and grinned, but they did not stop. At a steady pace the big grey wagon thrust its nose into the crowd and pressed on. A second appeared, apparently loaded with supplies; half a dozen Tommies sat on the top and back systematically prodding with their rifles at any member of the crowd who tried to gain a foothold.
Next to the driver sat an officer, and Kenyon saw at once that he was no ordinary A.S.C. lieutenant, but a member of the General Staff; the peak of his cap bedecked with golden oak leaves and the red tabs on his tunic proclaimed it from the house tops. He lolled back puffing at a cigarette, but a riding crop lay across his knee, and he used it without hesitation on the faces of anyone bold enough to climb on to the step.