was over and peace had settled once more upon the face of nature.

From far away came the sound of galloping hoofs, belonging, no doubt, to
some of the horses who had participated in the late excitement.

The embankment was strewn with men and milk-cans, chiefly the latter. No
one seemed to be wholly dead, although one or two looked pretty near it.

A few feet away, Burkett, the constable, was having a convulsion in his
vain endeavour to extricate his cranium from a milk-can. The sounds that
issued from that can made me blush.

Jackson was sitting up and staring dully at the river, while Dr.
Brotherton, with his frock-coat split to the collar, was fishing
fragments of his medicine case out of another can.

Others of the erstwhile procession were distributed about the embankment
in various conditions, but, as I have said, nobody seemed to have parted
company with the vital spark.

Hawkins alone was invisible, and as I struggled to my feet this fact
puzzled me considerably.

A pile of milk-cans balanced on the river's edge, and on the chance of
finding the inventor's remains, I tipped them into the stream. Underneath,
stretched on the cold, unsympathetic ground, his feet dabbling idly in the
water, his clothes in a hundred shreds, a great lump on his brow, was
Hawkins, stunned and bleeding!

As I turned to summon Brotherton, Hawkins opened his eyes.