"

Came a straggling volley again, like a man running a metal hammer very
rapidly along iron corrugations, and this time people were dropping all
over the road. One white-faced man not a score of yards away fell with
a curse and a sob, struggled up, staggered for some yards with blood
running abundantly from his neck, and fell and never stirred again.
Another went down upon his back clumsily in the roadway and lay wringing
his hands faster and faster until suddenly with a movement like a sigh
they dropped inert by his side. A straw-hatted youth in a flannel suit
ran and stopped and ran again. He seemed to be holding something red and
strange to his face with both hands; above them his eyes were round
and anxious. Blood came out between his fingers. He went right past
the hotel and stumbled and suddenly sprawled headlong at the opposite
corner. The majority of the crowd had already vanished into doorways and
side streets. But there was still shouting and there was still a remnant
of amazed and angry men in the roadway--and one or two angry women. They
were not fighting. Indeed they were unarmed, but if they had had weapons
now they would certainly have used them.

"But this is preposterous!" cried Benham. "Preposterous. Those soldiers
are never going to shoot again! This must stop."

He stood hesitating for a moment and then turned about and dashed for
the staircase. "Good Heaven!" cried White. "What are you going to do?"

Benham was going to stop that conflict very much as a man might go to
stop a clock that is striking unwarrantably and amazingly. He was going
to stop it because it annoyed his sense of human dignity.

White hesitated for a moment and then followed, crying "Benham!"

But there was no arresting this last outbreak of Benham's all too
impatient kingship. He pushed aside a ducking German waiter who was
peeping through the glass doors, and rushed out of the hotel. With
a gesture of authority he ran forward into the middle of the street,
holding up his hand, in which he still held his dinner napkin clenched
like a bomb. White believes firmly that Benham thought he would be able
to dominate everything. He shouted out something about "Foolery!"

Haroun al Raschid was flinging aside all this sublime indifference to
current things....

But the carbines spoke again.

Benham seemed to run unexpectedly against something invisible. He
spun right round and fell down into a sitting position. He sat looking
su