me_--and I
don't like it. I never professed to have as much courage as you have--I
mean as you say you have; but I'm like a woman, when I'm driven into a
corner I don't much care what I do--ah! then I _am_ dangerous! It's not
courage, I know, it's fear; but a man afraid and driven to bay is an
ugly creature to deal with. And then it strikes me that I get all the
dullest and also the most dangerous part of the work put on me, and I
don't like _that_.'

Copping glanced for a moment at his colleague with eyes from which,
according to Carlyle's phrase, 'hell-fire flashed for an instant.'
Probably he would have very much liked to employ the dagger there and
then. But he knew that that was not exactly the time or place for a
quarrel, and he knew too that he had been talking too long with his
friend already, and that he might on coming out of Professor Flick's
room encounter some guest in the corridor. So by an effort he took off
from his face the fierce expression, as one might take off a mask.

'We can't quarrel now, we two,' he said. 'When we come safe out of this
business----'

'_If_ we come safe out of this business,' the Professor interposed, with
a punctuating emphasis on the 'if.'

Copping answered all unconsciously in the words of Lady Macbeth.

'Keep your courage up, and we shall do what we want to do.'

Then he left the room, and cautiously closed the door behind him, and
crept stealthily away.

Ericson, Hamilton, and Sarrasin remained with Sir Rupert after the
distinguished Americans had gone. There was an evident sense of relief
running through the company when these had gone. Sir Rupert could see
with half an eye that some news of importance had come.

'Well?' he asked; and that was all he asked.

'Well,' the Dictator replied, 'we have had some telegrams. At least
Hamilton and I have. Have you heard anything, Sarrasin?'

'Something merely personal, merely personal,' Sarrasin answered with a
somewhat constrained manner--the manner of one who means to convey the
idea that the tortures of the Inquisition should not wrench that secret
from him. Sarrasin was good at most things, but he was not happy at
concealing secrets from his friends. Even as it was he blinked his eyes
at Hamilton in a way that, if the others were observing him just then,
must have made it apparent that he was in possession of some portentous
communication which could be divulged to Hamilton alone. Sir Rupert,
however, was not thinking