At the street door they stopped for a moment and listened. No sound
came from the street, but they heard once more at a little distance
the crackle of rifle fire. The Doctor seemed satisfied. He opened
the door slowly, then suddenly swung it wide. The street was empty,
the eating-house across the way shuttered and closed, the dim light
over their own door shone only on rain spattering in puddles on the
rough road.
"We are fortunate," said the Doctor. "Now keep close together but
don't walk too fast."
They closed the door carefully and noiselessly behind them. They
stood still while the Doctor looked cautiously up and down the
street, but still they saw nothing and heard only the vast, diffused
sound of rain.
"It seems almost too good to be true," he murmured.
They started slowly down and quite suddenly Miss Minton slipped on
the wet step and fell thudding her whole length to the sidewalk. She
fell without a word, as completely as though she carried out a
rehearsed part, and lay there with her head turned from them. They
looked at her, unwilling to believe she had actually fallen. Doctor
Strike stepped down and picked her up. He held her for a moment, and
her eyes were congested, astonished, her mouth half open.
"I've hurt my ankle," she said hoarsely.
The smallest child began to cry once more, and Miss Minton was not
able as before to muffle her sobs.
They stood and looked at Miss Minton, even Doctor Strike looked at
her for a moment, as though she had deliberately betrayed them and
they were aghast at her duplicity. The smallest child went on
sobbing.
"Hush, darling, do hush," whispered Megan. She wiped its streaming
eyes and nose with her handkerchief.
"Oh, I've hurt my ankle!" Miss Minton's voice had become a groan of
anguish.
The Doctor bent and examined it while Miss Reed held her up.
"It isn't broken," he said. "You will just have to walk on it
somehow. I'll help you."
They redistributed the children and the baggage, the Doctor put his
arm under Miss Minton's arms.
"Try now," he insisted. "You've got to do it." She limped forward,
her breath coming in explosive groans at every step. The youngest
child began to cry more loudly.
"Hush, darling," said Megan and, when she did not stop, shook her
slightly. "You really must hush," she said sharply.
They moved along the street with the slowness of a nightmare. But
Megan knew they must reach the barricade, because there were always
certain things that God would never permit and the slaughter of these
children was one of them. They would certainly reach the barricade.
The street was so cold, so dark, touched only by flickerings of
distant fires, that it was impossible to imagine it as ever made
aware of the infinitely remote warmth and beauty of the sun. Megan
felt that she might be crawling over some dead planet, strayed
outside the universe, moving blindly and remotely toward no possible
end. And yet the barricade was only a few hundred yards away.
Doctor Strike had said the Chinese were never able to discover the
existence of a God of love. It had not seemed so tragic when he said
it as it did now. Now she could not conceive of how they had existed
without it. Only to a God of love was everything possible,
immortality, redemption, miracle. Miracle. These children were
going to be got alive and unharmed to the barricade.
They reached the end of the street, turned to the right and walked
slowly, the limping Miss Minton in their midst, past the smoldering,
smoking ruins of the godowns to the North Station.
The station enclosure was crowded and steam from an engine gushed up
from behind the roof of a platform. They kept on the far side of the
street. Miss Minton was groaning and sobbing. She fell against
Doctor Strike's shoulder.
"I can't do it," she cried, "I just can't do it."
The Doctor looked over and saw inside the iron fence of the enclosure
five or six rickshaws waiting, the coolies squatting between the
shafts. There was a crowd around the entrance, which was a side one
leading directly to the train platforms. They had not yet come to
the main gate. They could see that the crowd was mostly soldiers but
there were coolies among them. The Doctor seized Miss Minton more
firmly about the waist and half carried her across the street to the
side gate. Megan, Miss Reed and the children followed close behind.
At the gate the Doctor called stridently:
"_Wambotso!_"
The rickshaws swooped down on them like pigeons to scattered grain.
There were six of them jostling and tugging for place. The crowd in
their curiosity pressed them against the iron fence. Megan's
shoulder was pressed against the iron. She pushed and kept as well
as she could a clear space in front of her for the huddling children.
A very tall coolie with a bronze aquiline face and a cue wound around
his battered felt hat was looking at her across several heads and
shoulders. He held a long bamboo carrying-pole. He said something
in a loud voice and some of the others laughed. Megan looked away
from him. Doctor Strike had reached one of the rickshaws with Miss
Minton and lifted her in. The rickshaw started. He put four
children into the next and sent it following, Miss Reed he lifted by
force into the next. Megan saw her protest, heard her say wildly,
"Not till you come, Doctor!", but he set the youngest Russian on her
lap and himself shoved the rickshaw forward.
The rickshaws swerved aside to make room for a big closed car which
had come up to the side gate. The soldiers began shoving the crowd
to make way and Megan was nearly pushed off her feet. She had a
momentary glimpse of Doctor Strike's face, rigid and white, and the
blaze of his quicksilver eyes, as he turned to put her in the next
rickshaw. Then the tall coolie with the carrying-pole struck him
over the head. He staggered backward from her, crashing into the
rickshaw he had intended for her. Megan caught him under the arms
and, with an effort that seemed to tear her strength out by the
roots, lifted him into it. The rickshaw lurched forward and she had
time to see them all four wabbling drunkenly in their flight away
from her down the street. Suddenly frantic, almost beyond
consciousness, she clutched at the remaining one. But she felt
herself torn from it, heard shouts, indistinguishable clamor, and
through it, like a thin ray of light, like a small sudden pain, one
scream that was her own.
[Illustration: Chapter XI headpiece]