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
raise the tribes, to set Africa aflame. He was to scatter it--broadcast,
broadcast! There was no end to it--don't spare it! "There's millions,
millions of it!" he shouted, and achieved a weird wild majesty in a final
cry, "God with us!"
Then he fell--tumbled back in utter collapse into the recesses of the
great chair.
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