all sorts of rags, with the stain upon those rags; men devilishly set

off with spoils of women’s lace and silk and ribbon, with the stain

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dyeing those trifles through and through. Hatchets, knives,

bayonets, swords, all brought to be sharpened, were all red with it.

Some of the hacked swords were tied to the wrist of those who

carried them, with strips of linen and fragments of dress: ligatures

various in kind, but all deep of the one colour. And as the frantic

wielders of these weapons snatched them from the stream of

sparks and tore away into the streets, the same red hue was red in

their frenzied eyes;eyes which any unbrutalised beholder would

have given twenty years of life, to petrify with a well directed gun.

All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning man,

or of any human creature at any very great pass, could see a world

if it were there. They drew back from the window, and the Doctor

looked for explanation in his friend’s ashy face.

“They are,” Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fearfully

around at the locked room, “murdering the prisoners. If you are

sure of what you say; if you really have the power you think you

haveas I believe you havemake yourself known to these devils,

and get taken to La Force. It may be too late, I don’t know, but let

it not be a minute