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The human mob is dense. Wailing, passionate music beats upon the air. There is the cry of lost souls in its under-toned pathos. Villany and sentiment go hand in hand at the El Dorado. The songs of old, in voice and symphony, unlock the gates of memory. They leave the lingerers, disarmed, to the tempting allurements of beauty, drink, and gaming.
In a few minutes more, a trumpet sounded a shrill blast; the feet of many restless horses raised a confused noise, that was mixed with broken, under-toned ejaculations, and clanking of swords and bucklers, and, after a minute or two of comparative silence, came the high tones of a herald's voice, demanding admittance in the name of King James.
Two minutes later I emerged, to face Drayton and the Hartopp unloading from an electric hansom. The under-toned remark of one of the footman came to me: "A bit behind schedule time to-night, eh, Charley?" There wasn't anything to do then, for they were fair inside. "Boiler-plate" was finishing some elephantine pleasantry to Natica, when he saw what I saw.
"Yes, there is a mistake of some sort," said Sharp, with a laugh, "for I've met him frequently at Clatterby station, and know him to be a friend of Mr Tipps; but you have done your duty, Blunt, so you can now leave the gentleman to me," saying which he went up to Edwin and entered into an under-toned conversation with him, during which it might have been observed that Edwin looked a little confused at times, and Mr Sharp seemed not a little amused.
The detective, at the moment he decided to get away, was so close to the working party that he could overhear what passed between them, and while he watched he saw a figure glide into their midst. "The dead alive!" was the under-toned exclamation that fell from his lips as he recognized the half-drowned man whom he had so successfully overcome. At once there followed great excitement.
I could have hurled back into the face of the laughing sun, my hate, and called him deceiver and traitor; for had he not, with other causes conspired to smile me, five minutes ago, into a fool's paradise? "Master Rattlin, won't you please to alight?" said one of those under-toned, gerund-singing voices, that my instinct told me to be an usher's.
In those few under-toned words of Grandcourt's she felt as absolute a resistance as if her thin fingers had been pushing at a fast shut iron door. She knew her helplessness, and shrank from testing it by any appeal shrank from crying in a dead ear and clinging to dead knees, only to see the immovable face and feel the rigid limbs.
"When dismissed," rang the cadet adjutant's voice, "men not on duty will return to their tents and finish the night's rest. Dismiss by companies." As the drowsy cadets turned back to their company streets there was a buzz of eager, under-toned conversation. Some of the men of the guard threw in enough information so that the main part of the story became known and flew like fire through the camp.
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