The crash came on the ears of the Dictator and Hamilton. For a moment or two the senses of both were paralysed. It is not easy for most of us, who have not been through the cruel suffocation of a dynamite explosion, to realise completely how the crushed collapse of the nervous system leaves mind, thought, and feeling absolutely prostrate before the mere shrillness of sound. We are not speaking now of the cases in which serious harm is done—of course anyone can understand that—but only of the cases, after all, and in even the best carried out and most brutally contrived dynamite attempt—the vast majority of cases in which the intended, or at least the probable, victims suffer no permanent harm whatever. The Dictator suddenly found his senses deserting him with the crash of the explosion. He knew in a moment what it was, and he knew also that for a certain moment or two his senses would utterly fail to take account of it. For one fearful second he knew he was going to be insensible, just as a passenger at sea knows he is going to be sick. Then it was all over with him and quiet, and he felt nothing.

How much time had passed when he was roused by the voice of Hamilton he did not know. Hamilton had had much the same experience, but Hamilton's main work in life was looking after the Dictator, and the Dictator's main work in life was not in looking after himself. Hamilton, too, was the younger man. Anyhow, he rallied the sooner.

'Are you hurt?' he cried. And he trembled lest he should hear the immortal words of Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow, 'I'm killed!'

'Eh—what? I say, is it you, Hamilton? I'm all right, boy; how about you?'

'Nothing the matter with me,' Hamilton said. 'Quite sure you are not hurt?'

'Not the least little bit—only dazzled and dazed a good deal, Hamilton.'

'Let's see what's going on outside,' Hamilton said. He sprang to open the door.

'Wait a moment,' Ericson said quietly. 'Let us see if that is all. There may be another. Don't rush, Hamilton, please. Take your time.' The Dictator was cool and composed.

'Gunpowder?' Hamilton asked.

'No, no—dynamite. You go and look after Sarrasin, Hamilton; I'll take charge of the house and see what this really comes to.'

And so, with the composure of a man to whom nothing in the way of action is quite new or disturbing, he opened the door and went out into the corridor. All the lights that were anywhere burning had been blown out. Servants, men and women, were rushing distractedly downstairs, those who slept above; those who slept below were rushing distractedly upstairs. It was a confused scene of night-shirts and night-dresses.

Ericson seized one stout footman, whom he knew well by sight and by name: 'Look here, Frederick,' he said quietly, 'don't spread any alarm—the worst is over. Turn on all the lights you can, and get someone to saddle a horse at once—no, to put a bridle on the horse—never mind the saddle—and in the meanwhile guard the house-doors and see that no one goes out, except me. I want to get the horse. Do you understand all this? Have you your senses about you?'

The man was plucky enough, and took his tone readily from Ericson's calm, subdued way. He recognised a leader. He had all the courage of Tommy Atkins, and all Tommy Atkins's daring, and only wanted leadership: only lead him and he was all right. He could follow.

'Yes, your Excellency, I think I do. Lights on; horse bridled; no one allowed out but you.'

'Right,' Ericson answered; 'you are a brave fellow.'

In a moment Helena came from her room, fully dressed—that is to say, fully robed, in the dressing-gown wherein the Duchess had seen her, with white cheeks but resolute face.

'Oh! thank God you are safe,' she exclaimed. 'What is it? Where is my father?'

Just at the moment Sir Rupert came out of his room, plunging, staggering, but undismayed, and even then not forgetful of his position as a Secretary of State.

'Here is your father, Heaven be praised!' Ericson exclaimed. 'Sir Rupert, I am an unlucky guest! I have brought all this on you!'

Helena threw herself on her father's neck. He clasped her tenderly, looking over her shoulder to Ericson as if he were putting her carefully for the moment out of the way. 'It is dynamite, Ericson?'

'Oh, yes, I think so. The sound seems to me beyond all mistake. I have heard it before.'

'Not an accident?'

'No—no accident. I don't think we need trouble about that. Look here, Sir Rupert; you look after the house and the Duchess, and Sarrasin and everybody; Hamilton will help you—I say, Hamilton! Hamilton! where are you? I am going to have a ride round the grounds and see if anyone is lurking. I have ordered a horse to be bridled.'

'You take command, Ericson,' Sir Rupert said.

'Outside, yes,' Ericson assented. 'You look after things inside.'

'You must order a horse for me too,' Helena exclaimed, stiffening herself up from her father's protecting embrace. 'I can help you, I have the eyes of a lynx—I must do something. I must! Let me go, papa!' She turned appealingly to Sir Rupert.

'Go, child, if you won't be in the way.'

Ericson hesitated, just for a second; then he spoke.

'Come with me if you will, Miss Langley. You can pilot me over the grounds as nobody else can.'

'Oh!' she exclaimed, and they both rushed downstairs together. The servants were already lighting up such of the electric lamps as had been left uninjured after the explosion. The electric engineer was on the spot and at work, with his assistants, as fresh and active as if none of them had ever wanted a rest in his life. Ericson cast a glance over the whole scene, and had to acknowledge that the household had turned out with almost the promptitude of a fire-drill on the ocean. The women-servants, who were to be seen in their night-dresses scuttling wildly about when the crash of the explosion first shook them up had now altogether disappeared, and were in all probability steadily engaged in putting things to rights wherever they could, and no one yet knew the number of the dead.

Ericson and Helena got down to the hall. The girl was happy. Her father was safe; and she was with the man she loved. More than that, she had a sense of sharing a danger with the man she loved. That was a delight to be expressed by no words. She had not the remotest idea of what had happened. She had been sitting up late—unable to sleep. She had been thinking about the news the Dictator had told her—that he was going to leave her. Then came the tremendous crash of the explosion, and for a moment her senses and her thought were gone. Then she staggered to her feet, half blinded, half deafened, but alive, and she rushed to her door and dragged it open; and but for a blue foam of dawn all was darkness, and in another moment she knew that Ericson was alive, and she was able to welcome her father. What on earth did she want more? It might be that there was danger to Hamilton—to Sarrasin—to Mrs. Sarrasin—to the Duchess—to Miss Paulo—to some of the servants—to her own maid, a great friend and favourite of hers—to all sorts of persons. She had to acknowledge to her own heart that in such a moment she did not much care. She was conscious of a sense of joy in the knowledge of the fact that To-to had not yet got down from London. There all calculation ceased.

The hall-door was opened. The breath of the fresh morning came into their lungs. Helena drank it in, as if it were a draught of wine—in more correct words, as if it were not a draught of wine, for she was not much of a wine-drinker. The freshness of the air was a shuddering and a delight to her.

'Let nobody leave the house until we come back,' Ericson said to the man who opened the doors for Helena and him.

'Nobody, sir?' the man asked in astonishment.

'Nobody whatever.'

'Not Sir Rupert, sir?'

'Certainly not. Sir Rupert above all men! We can't have your father getting into danger, Miss Langley—can we?'

'Oh no,' she answered quickly.

'Which way to the stables?' Ericson asked the man.

'Come with me,' Helena said; 'I can show you.'

They hurried round to the stables, and found a wide-awake groom or two who had a lady's horse properly saddled, and a man's horse with no saddle, but only a bridle on. They had evidently taken the Dictator's command to the letter, and assumed that he had some particular motive for riding without a saddle.

Ericson lifted Helena into her seat. It has to be confessed that she was riding in her already-mentioned dressing-gown, and that she had nothing on her head, and that her bare feet were thrust into slippers. Mrs. Grundy was not on the premises, and, even if she were, Helena would not have cared two straws about Mrs. Grundy's reflections and criticisms.

'Oh, look here, you haven't a saddle!' she cried to Ericson.

'Saddle!—no matter—never mind the saddle,' he called. The horse was a little shy, and backed and edged, and went sideways, and plunged. One of the grooms rushed at him to hold his head.

The Dictator laid one hand upon his mane. 'Let him go!' he said, and he swung himself easily on to the unsaddled back and gripped the bridle. 'Now for it, Helena!' he exclaimed.

Now for it, Helena! She just caught the words in the wild flash of their flight. Never before had he used her name in that way. He rode his unsaddled horse with all the ease of another Mephistopheles; and what delighted the girl was that he seemed to count on her riding her course just as well.

'Look out everywhere you can,' he called to her; 'tell me if you see a squirrel stirring, or the eyes of an owl looking out of the ivy-bushes.'

Helena had marvellous sight—but she could descry no human figure, no human eyes, but his anywhere amid the myriad eyes of the dark night. They rode on and round.

'We shall soon find out the whole story,' he said to her after a while, and he brought his horse so near to hers that it touched her saddle. 'There is no one in the grounds, and we shall soon know all, if we have only to deal with the people who were indoors. I think we have settled that already.'

'But what is it all?' she breathlessly asked, as they galloped round the young plantation. The hour, the companionship, the gallop, the fresh breath of the morning air among the trees, seemed to make her feel as if she never had been young before.

'"Miching mallecho; it means mischief," as Hamlet says,' the Dictator replied, 'and very much mischief too,' and he checked himself, pulling up his horse so suddenly that the creature fell back upon his haunches, and then flinging himself off the horse as lightly as if he were performing some equestrian exercise to win a prize in a competition. Then he let his own horse run loose, and he stopped Helena's, and took her foot in his hand.

'Jump off!' he said, in a voice of quiet authority. They were now in front of the hall-door.

'What more is the matter?' she asked nervously, though she did not delay her descent. She was firm on the gravel already, picking up the dragging skirts of her dressing-gown. The dawn was lighting on her.

'The house is on fire at this side,' he said composedly. 'I must go and show them how to put it out.'

'The house on fire!' she exclaimed.

'Yes—for the moment. I shall put that all right.'

She was prepared for anything now. 'We have a fire-escape in the village,' she said, panting for breath. She had full faith in the Dictator's power to conquer any conflagration, but she did not want to give utterly away the resources of Seagate Hall.

'Yes, I am afraid of that sort of thing,' the Dictator replied. 'I have no time to lose. Tell your father to look after things indoors and to let nobody out.'

Then the hall-door was flung open, and both Ericson and Helena saw by the scared faces of the two men who stood in the hall that something had happened since the Dictator and she had gone out on their short wild night-ride.

'What has gone wrong, Frederick?' Helena asked eagerly.

'Oh please, Miss, Mr. Rivers—Miss——'

'Yes, Frederick, Mr. Rivers——'

'Please, Miss, poor Mr. Rivers—he is killed!'

Then for the first time the terrible reality of the situation was brought straight home to Helena—to her mind and to her heart. Up to this moment it was melodramatic, startling, shocking, bewildering; but there was no cold, grim, cruel, practical detail about it. It was like the fierce blinding flash of the lightning and the crash of the thunder, followed, when senses coldly recover, by the knowledge of the abiding blindness. It was like the raw conscript's first sight of the comrade shot down by his side. Helena was a brave girl, but she would have fallen in a faint were it not that a burst of stormy tears came to her relief.

'Poor Soame Rivers!' she sobbed. 'I wish I could have liked him more than I did.' And she sobbed again, and Ericson understood her and sympathised with her.

'Poor Soame Rivers!' he said after her. 'I wish I too had liked him, and known him better!'

'What was he killed for?' Helena passionately asked.

'He was killed for me!' the Dictator answered calmly. 'All this trouble and tragedy have been brought on your house by me.'

'Let it come!' the girl sobbed, in a wild fresh outburst of new emotion.

'Come,' Ericson said gently and sympathetically, 'let us go in and learn what has happened. Let us have the full story of the whole tragedy. Nothing is now left but to punish the guilty.'

'Who are they?' Helena asked in passion.

'We shall find them,' he answered. 'Come with me, Helena. You are a brave girl, and you are not going to give way now. I may have to ask you to lend a helping hand yet.'

The Dictator said these words with a purpose. He knew that the best way to get a courageous woman to brace herself together for new effort and new endurance was to make her believe that her personal help would still be wanted.

'Oh, I—I am ready for anything,' she said fervently. 'Only tell me what I am to do, and you will see that I can do it.'

'I trust you,' he answered quietly. Meanwhile his keen eyes were wandering over the side of the house, where a light smoke told him of fire. Time enough yet, he thought.

Ericson and Helena hurried into the house and up to the corridor, which seemed to be the stage of the tragedy. Sir Rupert was there, and Mrs. Sarrasin, and Miss Paulo, and the Duchess and her three maids, who, with the instinct of discipline, had rallied round her when, like the three hares in the old German folk-song, they found that they were not killed.

'Who are killed?' the Dictator asked anxiously but withal composedly. He had seen men killed before.

'Poor Soame Rivers is killed,' Sir Rupert said sadly. 'The man who broke into Sarrasin's room—your room, Ericson—he is killed.'

'And Sarrasin himself?' Ericson asked, glancing away from Mrs. Sarrasin.

'Sarrasin is cut about on the shoulder—and of course he was stunned and deafened. But nothing dangerous we all hope.'

'I have seen my husband,' Mrs. Sarrasin stoutly said; 'he will be as well as ever before many days.'

'And one of the menservants is killed, I am sorry to say.'

'What about the American gentlemen?'

'I have sent to ask after them,' Sir Rupert innocently said. 'They are both uninjured.'

'My countrymen,' said the Duchess, 'are bound to get through, like myself. But they might come out and comfort us.'

'Well, I can do nothing here for the moment,' Ericson said; 'one end of the house is on fire.'

'Oh, no!' Sir Rupert exclaimed.

'Yes; the east wing is on fire. I shall easily get it under. Send me a lot of the grooms; they will be the readiest fellows. Let no one leave the place, Sir Rupert, except these grooms. You give the order, please, and let someone here see to it.'

'I'll see to it,' Mrs. Sarrasin promptly said. 'I will stand in the doorway.'

'Shall I go with you?' Helena asked pathetically of Ericson.

'No, no. It would be only danger, and no use.'

Poor Soame Rivers! No use to him certainly. If Helena could only have known! The one best and noblest impulse of his life had brought his life to a premature end. He had deeply repented his suppression of the warning telegram, although he had not for a moment believed that there was the slightest foundation for real alarm. But it was borne in upon him that, seeing what his hidden and ulterior views were, it was not acting quite like an English gentleman to run the slightest risk in such a case. His only conscience was to do as an English gentlemen ought to do. If he had not loved—as far as he was capable of loving—Helena Langley; if he had not hated—so far as he was capable of hating—the man whom it hurt him to hear called the Dictator, then he might not have judged his own conduct so harshly. But he had thought it over, and he knew that he had crushed and suppressed the telegram out of a feeling of spite, because he loved Helena, and for her sake hated the Dictator. He could not accuse himself of having consciously given over the Dictator to danger, for he did not believe at the time that there was any real danger; but he condemned himself for having done a thing which was not straightforward—which was not gentlemanly, and which was done out of personal spite. So he made himself a watch-dog in the corridor. He went to Hamilton's room, but he heard there the tones of Sarrasin's voice, and he did not choose to take Sarrasin into his confidence. He went back into his own room, and waited. Later on he crept out, having heard what seemed to him suspicious footfalls at Ericson's door, and he stole along, and just as he got to the door he became aware that a struggle was going on inside, and he flung the door open, and then came the explosion. He lived a few minutes, but Sarrasin saw him and knew him, and could bear ready witness to his pluck and to the tragedy of his fate.

'Come, Miss Paulo,' Helena said, 'we will go over the rooms and see what is to be done. Papa, where is poor—Mr. Rivers?'

'I have had him taken to his room, Helena, although I know that was not what was right. He ought to have been allowed to remain where he was found; but I couldn't leave him there—my poor dear friend! I had known him since he was a child. I could not leave his body there—disfigured and maimed, to lie in the open passage! Good heavens!'

'What brought him there, anyhow?' the Duchess asked sharply.

'He must have heard some noise, and was running to the rescue,' Helena softly said. She was remorseful in her heart because she had not thought more deeply about poor Soame Rivers. She had been too much charged with gladness over the safety of her hero and the safety of her father.

'Like the brave comrade that he was,' Sir Rupert said mournfully. That was Soame Rivers's epitaph.

Mrs. Sarrasin and Dolores had thoughts of their own. They knew that there was something further to come, of which Sir Rupert and Helena had no knowledge or even suspicion. They were content to wait until Ericson came back. Curiously enough, no one seemed to be alarmed about the fact that the house had caught fire in a wing quite near to them. The common feeling was that the Dictator had taken that business in hand and that he would put it through; and that in any case, if there were danger to them, he would be sure to come in good time and tell them.

'I wonder our American friends have not come to look after us,' Helena said.

'They are used to all sorts of accidents in their country,' Sir Rupert explained. 'They don't mind such things there.'

'Excuse me, Sir Rupert,' the Duchess said, 'it's my country—and gentlemen do look after ladies there, when there's any danger round.'

'Beg your pardon, Sir Rupert,' one of the footmen said, coming respectfully but rather flushed towards the group, 'but this gentleman wished to go out into the grounds, and his Excellency was very particular in his orders that nobody was to go out until he came back.'

Mr. Copping of Omaha, fully dressed, tall hat in hand, presented himself and joined the group.

'Pray excuse me, Sir Rupert—and you ladies,' Mr. Copping said; 'I just thought I should like to have a look round to see what was happening; but your hired men said it was against orders, and, as I suppose you give the orders here, I thought I should just like to come and talk to you.'

'I beg your pardon, Mr. Copping; I do in a general way give the orders here, but Mr. Ericson just now is in command; he understands this sort of thing much better than I do, and we have put it all into his hands for the moment. The police will soon be here, but then our village police——'

'Don't amount to much, I dare say.'

'You see there has been a terrible attempt made——'

'Oh, you allow it really was an attempt, then, and not an accident—gas explosion or anything of the kind?'

'There is no gas in Seagate Hall,' Sir Rupert replied.

'Then you really think it was an explosion? Now, my friend and I, we didn't quite figure it up that way.'

'Well, even a gas explosion, if there were any gas to explode, wouldn't quite explain the presence of a strange man in Captain Sarrasin's room.'

'Then you think that it was an attempt on the life of Captain Sarrasin?'

Mrs. Sarrasin contracted her eyebrows. Was Mr. Copping indulging in a sneer? Possibly some vague idea of the same kind grated on the nerves of Sir Rupert.

'I haven't had time to make any conjectures that are worth talking about as yet,' Sir Rupert said. 'Captain Sarrasin is not well enough yet to be able to give us any clear account of himself.'

'He will very soon be able to give a very clear account,' Mrs. Sarrasin said with emphasis.

'I have sent for doctors and police,' Sir Rupert observed.

'Before the house was put into a state of siege?'

'Before I had requested my friend Mr. Ericson to take command and do the best he could,' Sir Rupert said, displeased, he hardly knew why, at Mr. Copping's persistent questioning.

'The stranger who invaded Captain Sarrasin's room will have to explain himself, won't he—when your police come along?'

'The stranger will not explain himself,' Sir Rupert said emphatically; 'he is dead.'

Mr. Copping had much power of self-control, but he did seem to start at this news.

'Great Scott!' he exclaimed. 'Then I don't see how you are ever to get at the truth of this story, Sir Rupert.'

'We shall get at the whole truth—every word—never fear,' Mrs. Sarrasin said defiantly.

'We shall send for the local magistrates,' Sir Rupert said, 'of course.' He was anxious, for the moment, to allow no bickerings. 'I am a magistrate myself, but in such a case I should naturally rather leave it to others. I have lost a dear friend by this abominable crime, Mr. Copping.'

'So I hear, Sir Rupert—sorry to hear it, sir—so is my friend Professor Flick.'

'Thank you—thank you both—you can understand then how I feel about the matter, and how little I am likely to leave any stone unturned to bring the murderers of my friend to justice. After the death of my friend himself, I most deeply deplore the death of the man who made his way into Sarrasin's room——'

'Yes, quite right, Sir Rupert; spoils the track, don't it?'

'But when Captain Sarrasin comes to he will tell us something.'

'He will,' Mrs. Sarrasin added earnestly.

'Well, I say,' Mr. Copping exclaimed, 'Professor Flick, and where have you been all this time?'

The moony spectacles beamed not quite benevolently on the corridor.

'I don't quite understand, Sir Rupert Langley, sir,' the learned Professor declared, 'why one is to be treated as a prisoner in a house like this—a house like this, sir, in the truly hospitable home of an English gentleman, and a statesman, and a Minister of her Majesty's Crown of Great Britain——'

'If my esteemed and most learned friend,' Mr. Copping intervened, 'would allow me to direct his really gigantic intellect to the fact that very extraordinary events have occurred in this household, and that it is Sir Rupert Langley's duty as a Minister of the Crown to take care that every possible assistance is to be given to the proper authorities—and that at such a time some regulations may be necessary which would not be needed or imposed under other circumstances——'

'Precisely,' Sir Rupert said. 'Mr. Copping quite appreciates the extreme gravity of the situation.'

'Come, let us go round, let us do something,' Helena said impatiently, and she and the Duchess and Mrs. Sarrasin and Miss Paulo left the corridor.

Meanwhile Mr. Copping had been sending furtive glances at his learned friend, which, if they had only possessed the fabled power of the basilisk, would assuredly have made things uncomfortable for Professor Flick.

'Please, Sir Rupert,' a servant said, 'Mrs. Sarrasin wishes to ask could you speak to her one moment?'

'Certainly, certainly,' Sir Rupert said, and he hastened away, leaving the two distinguished friends together.

'Look here,' Copping exclaimed, with blazing eyes, 'if you are going to get into one of your damnation cowardly fits I shall just have to stick a knife into you.'

The learned Professor began with characteristic ineptitude to reply in South American Spanish.

'Confound you,' Copping said in a fierce low tone and between his teeth, 'why do you talk Spanish? Haven't you given us trouble enough already without that? Talk English—you don't know who may be listening to us. Now look here, we shall come out of this all right if you can only keep up your confounded courage. There's nothing against us if you don't give us away. But just understand this, I am not going to be taken alone. If I am to die, you are to die too—by my hand if it can't be done in any other way.'

'I am not going to stop here,' the shivering Professor murmured, 'to die like a poisoned rat in a hole. I'll get away—I must get away—out of this accursed place, where you brought me.'

'Where I brought you? Could I have done anything better for you? Were you or were you not under sentence of death? Was this or was it not your last chance to escape the garrotte?'

'Well, I don't care about all that. I tell you if I have no better chance left I shall appeal to the Dictator himself, and tell him the whole story, and ask him to show me some mercy.'

'That you never, never shall!' Copping whispered ferociously into his ear. 'You shall die by my hand before I leave this place if you don't act with me and leave the place with me. Keep that in your mind as fast as you can. You shall never leave this place alive unless you and I leave it free men together. Remember that!'

'You are always bullying me,' the big man whimpered.

'Hold your tongue!' Copping said savagely. 'Here is Sir Rupert coming back.'

Sir Rupert came back, and in a moment was followed by the Dictator.