“What in the name of seething hell …”
“Get out of the way—! Where’s Freder—?”
“Here! What’s the matter?”
“Freder, they’ve taken Maria captive—”
“What?”
“They’ve taken Maria captive and they’re killing her—!”
Freder reeled. Josaphat dragged him towards the door. Like a log, Grot stood in his way, his lips mumbling, his eyes glaring.
“The woman who killed my machine—!”
“Shut up, you fool—get out of the way—!”
“Grot!” A sound born half of madness …
“Yes, Mr. Freder!”
“You stop with the machines!”
“Yes, Mr. Freder!”
“Come on, Josaphat—!”
The sound of running, running, retreating, ghostlike.
Grot turned round. He saw the paralysed machines, He lifted his arm and struck the machine with the full of his fist, as one strikes a stubborn horse between the eyes.
“The woman,” he shouted with a howl, “who saved my little children—!”
And he flung himself upon the machine with grinding teeth …
“Tell me—!” said Freder, almost softly. It was as if he did not want to waste an atom of strength. His face was a white stone in which his two eyes flamed like jewels. He jumped to the wheel of the little car in which Josaphat had come. For the pump-works lay at the extreme end of the great Metropolis.
It was still night.
The car started.
“We must go terribly out of our way,” said Josaphat, fixing the flashlight. “Many bridges between the houseblocks are blown up …”
“Tell me,” said Freder. His teeth met, chattering, as if he were cold.
“I don’t know who found it out … Probably the women, who were thinking of their children and wanted to get home. You can’t get anything out of the raving multitude. But anyway: When they saw the black water running towards them from the shafts of the underground railway, and when they realised that the pump-works, the safeguard of their city, had been destroyed by the stopping of the machines, then they went mad with despair. They say that some mothers, blind and deaf to all remonstrance, tried, as if possessed, to dive down through the flooded shafts, and just the terrible absoluteness of the futility of any attempt at rescue has turned them into beasts and they lust for revenge …”
“Revenge … on whom?”
“On the girl who seduced them …”
“On the girl … ?
“Go on …”
“Freder, the engine can’t keep up that speed …”
“Go on …”
“I do not know how it happened that the girl ran into their hands. I was on my way to you when I saw a woman running across the cathedral square, with her hair flying, the roaring rabble behind her. There has been the very hell of a night anyway. The Gothics are parading through the town scourging themselves, and they have put the monk Desertus on the cross. They are preaching: Doomsday had come, and it seems that they have converted a good many already, for September is crouching before the smoking ruins of Yoshiwara. A troop of torch dancers joined itself to the flagellants and, with frothing curses upon the Mother of Abominations, the great whore of Babylon, they burned Yoshiwara down to the ground …”
“The girl, Josaphat—”
“She did not reach the cathedral, Freder, where she wanted to take refuge. They overtook her on the steps because she fell on the steps—her gown hung down in ribbons from her body. A woman, whose white eyes were glowing with insanity shrieked out, as one inspired with the gift of prophecy:
“ ‘Look—! Look—! The saints have climbed down from their pedestals and will not let the witch into the cathedral.’ ”
“And—”
“Before the cathedral they are erecting a bonfire on which to burn the witch …”
Freder said nothing. He bent down lower. The car groaned and leapt.
Josaphat buried his hand in Freder’s arm.
“Stop—for God’s sake!!!”
The car stopped.
“We must go to the left—don’t you see? The bridge has gone!”
“The next bridge?”
“Is impassable!”
“Listen …”
“What is there to hear—”
“Don’t you hear anything?”
“No …”
“You must hear it—!”
“But what, Freder—?”
“Shrieks … distant shrieks …”
“I can’t hear anything …”
“But you must be able to hear it—!!”
“Won’t you drive on, Freder?”
“And don’t you see that the air over there is getting bright red?”
“From the torches, Freder …”
“They don’t burn so brightly …”
“Freder, we’re losing time here—!”
Freder did not answer. He was staring at the tatters of the iron bridge which were dangling down into the ravine of the street. He must cross over, yes, he must cross over, to get to the cathedral by a shortcut …
The frame-support of a ripped-open tower had fallen over from this side of the street to the other, gleaming metallically in the uncertain light of the fading night.
“Get out,” said Freder.
“Why?”
“Get out, I tell you …”
“I want to know why?”
“Because I’m going across there …”
“Across where?”
“Across the frame-support.”
“Going to drive across—?”
“Yes.”
“It’s suicide, Freder!”
“I didn’t ask you to accompany me. Get out!”
“I won’t permit it—It’s blazing lunacy!”
“The fire over there is blazing, man—!”
The words seemed not to come from Freder’s mouth.
Every wound of the dying city seemed to be roaring out of him.
“Drive on!” said Josaphat through clenched teeth.
The car gave a jump. It climbed. The narrow irons received the sucking, skidding wheels, with an evil, maliciously hypocritical sound.
Blood was trickling from Freder’s lips.
“Don’t—don’t put the brake on—for God’s sake don’t put the brake on!” shouted the man beside him making a clutch of madness at Freder’s hand. The car, already half-slipping, shot forward again. A split in the framework—over, onwards. Behind them the dead framework crashed into space amid shrieks!
They reached the other side with an impetus which was no longer to be checked. The wheels rushed into blackness and nothing. The car overturned, Freder fell and got up again. The other remained lying.
“Josaphat—!!”
“Run! It’s nothing!—I swear to God it’s nothing,” a distorted smile upon the white face. “Think of Maria—and run!”
And Freder raced off.
Josaphat turned his head. He saw the blackness of the street flashing bright red. He heard the screams of the thousands. He thought dully, with a thrust of his fist in the air: “Shouldn’t I like to be Grot now, to be able to swear properly …”
Then his head fell back into the filth of the street, and every consciousness faded but that of pain …
But
