the wall, staring
with horrified eyes at the door, shaking violently. He had lost control
of all his muscles; his face was grinning dreadfully. She gave a little
cry of fright at his dreadful face. He mistook the cause of it and it
communicated itself to him adding to his already overwhelming horror.

"They're after me," he mumbled; she could scarcely tell what he said
because his mouth could only form the words loosely. "On the roof!
Germs--Chinks! Listen!" Suddenly he spoke with extraordinary clearness,
telling her that he had had word that day that the Germans and Chinese
had formed an alliance and were already over-running Europe.

"Big air fleet over Melb-Melba! Alb't Hall in ruins!" he chattered."
Chinese torture. They know I'm biggest en'my in 'Stralia, ole girl. They
got me--to-day they caught me. I always knew it--I knew they'd have me!
But I beat them, just as I beat the Pater! They know I'm the man they're
after! They know I'm the son of the Duke of ----" He mumbled a name
Marcella could not catch. "Tha's why Pater--s'posed father--pers'cuted
me all 'long! He was in their pay. Can't you see it? But I got away.
Only they'll have me, they'll have me. They're on the roof now!
Marsh-Marshe-lla, can you guard chimney if they come down? Ole girl,
guard it with your body! Coming down chimney--Christmas Eve--"

He began to cry and laugh hysterically.

"When I was li'l kid'--Chris-mas stockings; I nev' thought Chinks'd
come down chim' with hot irons--scalpels--" And then he described in
abominable detail the tortures of the Inquisition all mixed up with
Chinese tortures and atrocities: his reading seemed to have taken a
morbid turn for years; the unspeakable horrors he described made
Marcella the same quaking jelly of fear as he was, for the moment. The
wild howling of the southerly buster in the chimney spoke to her Keltic
imagination of enemy voices; the creakings of the rain-swollen roof, the
pattering of the hail above on the iron was like quiet-footed torturers
advancing to their work. Her reason had gone for a moment, overwhelmed
by horrors. She did not stop to ask herself logical questions. Louis's
voice went on, all on one note, piling horror on horror, disgust on
disgust.

"They've killed poor ole King. Dutch Frank's in their pay--sleeping in
the nex' room to us all these weeks. They hold your feet to the fire
till they swell and burst. They'll do that to you, old thing, 'cause
you're with me. Ole girl--