“Perhaps you understand now the way in which those two girls were lost,” he said. “A slight weakening of control, eh? Not so bad for a man; but when a girl gives in to it! … Let’s go up Rathbone Place, now. I expect we may meet something interesting in that direction.”
Interesting! I had had enough of interest these last few minutes. I was still quivering with the rhythm of that doggerel song. However, I followed him across Oxford Street, into Rathbone Place. Here the clothed skeletons lay more thickly about our path. Between Oxford Street and Black Horse Yard I counted thirty-seven. Many of them lay in the road; but the majority were huddled in corners and doorways, as though the poor wretches had sought a quiet place in which to die. In the distance I heard wild shouting and the sound of something like a tom-tom being beaten intermittently; whilst in the silences between these outbursts, the roar of the flames somewhere in the neighbourhood came to me over the roofs.
At the corner of Gresse Street, a gaunt creature sidled up to us furtively; looked us up and down for a moment; and whispered to me: “Are you one of us?” Then, catching sight of the Red Cross on my arm, he fled into the darkness of the side-street without waiting for an answer.
In Percy Street, the pétroleuses were at work, methodically drenching houses with oil and setting them alight. One side of the street was already ablaze; and the light wind was blowing clouds of sparks broadcast over the neighbouring roofs. London was clearly doomed. Nothing could save it now, even had anyone wished to do so. As we stood at the street-corner, one of the hags passed us and snarled as she went by:
“We’ll roast you out of the West End soon, you ⸻ burjwaw! There’ll be lights enough for you and yer women to dance by when Molly comes with her pail. You’ve trod us down and starved us long enough. It’s our turn now. It’s our turn now, d’yer hear? I could burn ye as ye stand”—she drew back her bucket as though to drench us with petrol—“but I want ye to dance with the rest to make it complete. We’ll fix ye before long, we will.”
At the southern end of Charlotte Street a rough cross had been erected in the middle of the road and to it clung the remains of a skeleton. Most of the bones had fallen to the ground, but enough remained to show that a body—dead or alive—had been crucified there at one time. Over the head of the cross was nailed a placard with the inscription:
Achtung!
Eingang verboten.
Wir sind hier zu hause
stören uns nicht.
Glendyne was evidently acquainted with the placard, for he did not come forward to read it. He turned to the left and led me into Upper Rathbone Place.
“Mostly Germans in Charlotte Street now,” he said. “A branch of the East End colony, and just about as bad as their friends. I pity anyone who falls into their hands. Ugh!”
He spat on the ground as though he had a bad taste in his mouth.
“Thank goodness, this is only a small colony, for that sort of thing is apt to contaminate everything in its neighbourhood. Down East it’s on a bigger scale. Hark to that!”
Across the house-roofs between us and Charlotte Street there came a long quivering cry as of someone in the extremity of physical and mental agony; then it was drowned in a burst of laughter. Glendyne gritted his teeth.
“Tomorrow night, if the moonlight holds, I’ll have an aeroplane down here and give them a taste. They’re all of a kind, in there; so it’s easy enough to be sure we get the right ones. Loathsome swine!”
We cut across into Newman Street. At the door of St. Andrew’s Hall a weird figure was standing—a man dressed as a faun, evidently in a costume which had been looted from some theatrical wardrobe. When he caught sight of us, he ran in our direction, leaping and bounding in an ungainly fashion along the pavement and halting occasionally to blow shrilly upon a reed pipe.
“Pan is not dead!” he cried. “I bring the good tidings! All the world awakes again after its long sleep; and the fauns in the forests are pursuing the hamadryads and following the light feet of the oreads once more upon the hills of Arcady. Io! Io! Evohé! Swift be the hunting!
“The Old Gods slumbered; but Echo, watching by rock and pool, ever answered our calling through the years. Awake! Awake! O Gods! Hear again the pipes of Pan!”
He blew a melancholy air upon his instrument, prancing grotesquely the while.
“Syrinx, reed-maiden, men have not forgotten thee! Again they hear the wailings of thy soul in the pipes of Pan.”
He danced again, looking up at the moon.
“Diana! Long hast thou watched us from thy throne in the skies, but now the nights of thy hunting are come once more. Prepare the bow, gird on thy quiver and come with us again as in the days of old. Dost thou remember the white goat? Join us, O Huntress!”
Again he made music with his pipes.
“Syrinx, Syrinx! I come to seek thee in the reeds by the river. Awake! The world begins anew.”
And crying “Syrinx, O Syrinx!” he ran from us and disappeared into Mortimer Street.
Glendyne turned into Castle Street East. I could not see any reason for these continual turnings and windings in our wanderings, but I suppose that he had some definite itinerary in his mind, some route which would give him the best opportunity of exhibiting to me the varied aspects of London at this time. Here again the skeletons lay scattered, though there appeared to be no aggregations of them in any particular localities. Behind us, the Tottenham Court Road district seemed ablaze; and flames leaped above the house-roofs to the east.
Suddenly, after we had passed Berners Street, I heard a confused sound
