"
Gathbroke replaced the gates, for he feared prowling dogs, and they walked
down to the street and sat on the grass, leaning against the wall of the
cemetery, as dissociated as possible from the rows of uneasy sleepers.
II
They slept a little between blasts of dynamite, the snoring of men and
women and cries of children; finally at Gora's suggestion climbed to the
steep bare summit of Calvary to observe the progress of the fire.
The unlighted portion of the city beneath them looked like a dead planet.
Beyond was a tossing sea of flame whose far-reaching violent glare seemed
to project it illimitably.
"Nothing can stop it!" gasped Gora; and that terrific red mass of energy
and momentum did look as if its only curb would be the Pacific Ocean.
They talked until morning. He was very frank about himself, finding no
doubt a profound comfort in human companionship after those long hours of
ghastly communion down in that flaming jungle.
He was a younger son and in the army, not badly off, as his mother made him
a goodish allowance. She had come of a large manufacturing family in the
North and had brought a fortune to the empty treasury of the young peer she
had--happily for both--fallen in love with.
He had wanted to go into business--politics later perhaps--after he left
Eton, feeling that he had inherited some of the energy of his maternal
grandfather, but his mother had insisted upon the army and as he really
didn't care so very much, he had succumbed.
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