Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/393

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The Last Parley
383

ment. “It does not much matter what you call it,” he said, “so long as you keep out of its way.”

The bushes broke and snapped abruptly behind them, and a very tall figure towered above Turnbull with an arrogant stoop and a projecting chin, a chin of which the shape showed queerly even in its shadow upon the path.

“You see that is not so easy,” said MacIan between his teeth.

They looked up into the eyes of the Master, but looked only for a moment. The eyes were full of a frozen and icy wrath, a kind of utterly heartless hatred. His voice was for the first time devoid of irony. There was no more sarcasm in it than there is in an iron club.

“You will be inside the building in three minutes,” he said, with pulverising precision, “or you will be fired on by the artillery at all the windows. There is too much talking in this garden; we intend to close it. You will be accommodated indoors.”

“Ah!” said MacIan, with a long and satisfied sigh, “then I was right.”

And he turned his back and walked obediently toward the building. Turnbull seemed to canvass for a few minutes the notion of knocking the

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