Chapter X

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.