By degrees the tension in
his face relaxed.
"It goes!" he muttered. "Good!"
He bent once more over his work. I looked at the man by my side in
bewilderment.
"What does he mean?" I asked.
"The engine! The machinery is not damaged!" was the prompt reply.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead. The silence in the room seemed almost
unnatural, and behind it we could hear the dull, monotonous roar of the
machinery, still doing its work. Once more I turned to the window, and as
I did so I heard the sullen murmur of voices. A little way down the
street a solid body of mounted police were forcing back the people.
I made my way back to the other room, almost knocked down in the passage
by a man, half-dressed, tearing along with a bundle of wet proofs in his
hand. Adele was standing by the wrecked window-frame--there were
no more windows anywhere in the building--and she turned to me with a
little cry.
"Jim!" she exclaimed, "Look! Look!"
I saw the line of fire and the policemen's saddles emptying fast. The
people were closing round the building.
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