bow from Beaumaroy; she remembered the caution he had given her, and
herself made a deep curtsey; the old man made a slight inclination of his
handsome white head. Then, after another long pause, a movement passed
over his body--excepting his left arm. She saw that he was trying to rise
from his seat, but that he had barely the strength to achieve his
purpose. But he persisted in his effort, and in the end rose slowly and
tremulously to his feet.

Then, utterly without warning, in a sudden and shocking burst of that
high, voluble, metallic speech which Captain Alec had heard through the
ceiling of the parlor, he began to address them, if indeed it were they
whom he addressed, and not some phantom audience of Princes, Marshals,
Admirals, or trembling sheep-like re emits. It was difficult to hear the
words, hopeless to make out the sense. It was a farrago of nonsense, part
of his own inventing, part (as it seemed) wild and confused reminiscences
of the published speeches of the man he aped, all strung together on some
invisible thread of insane reasoning, delivered with a mad vehemence and
intensity that shook and seemed to rend his feeble frame.

"We must stop him, we must stop him," Mary suddenly whispered. "He'll
kill himself if he goes on like this!"

"I've never been able to stop him," Beaumaroy whispered back. "Hush! If
he hears us speaking he'll be furious, and carry on worse."

The old man's blue eyes fixed themselves on Beaumaroy--of Mary he took no
heed. He pointed at Beaumaroy with his scepter, and from him to the
gleaming gold in Captain Duggle's grave. A streak of coherency, a strand
of mad logic, now ran through his hurtling words; the money was there,
Beaumaroy was to take it--to-day, to-day!--to take it to Morocco, to