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The curved line of the horizon could scarcely be divined, the expanse of houses, which nothing bounded, appeared like a chaos of stone, studded with stagnant pools, which filled the hollows with pale steam; whilst against them the summits of the edifices, the housetops of the loftier streets, showed black like soot.
Some day he might be almost as great as Mahbub Ali! The housetops of his search should be half India; he would follow Kings and Ministers, as in the old days he had followed vakils and lawyers' touts across Lahore city for Mahbub Ali's sake. Meantime, there was the present, and not at all unpleasant, fact of St Xavier's immediately before him.
There was a fine bright moon mounting above the housetops of the water-front when we slid away from our jetty berth. Slid is the word. She was all power, this Channel steamer of hardly 1,500 tons, yet with two great smoke-stacks, three propellers, turbine-engines, and burning oil for fuel. That last is a cheerful item when you have to walk the deck it means no cinders in your eyes. Fuss?
Suddenly the sun came out, flashing first from the snows of Monte Sfiorito, then, in an instant, flooding the entire prospect with a marvellous yellow light, ethereal amber; whilst long streamers of tinted vapour columns of pearl-dust, one might have fancied rose to meet it; and all wet surfaces, leaves, lawns, tree-trunks, housetops, the bare crags of the Gnisi, gleamed in a wash of gold.
Of necessity our Secret Service work is carried on in silence and without blare of trumpets. The achievements of the Department of Justice cannot be proclaimed from the housetops. Everybody knows something about the crimes committed by the German agents. These spies, loyal with their lips, have in their hearts plotted innumerable crimes against our Government.
Then, as the sun declined, the pyre-like edifices gradually set the whole of Paris on fire. Flashes sped over the housetops, while black smoke lingered in the valleys.
As he gazed, as his sight forgot the grotesque doll painting of the face around those eyes, something queer began to come over him. A confusion. Something bothering. A kind of fright. "Thou!" he breathed. Her icy stillness endured. Not once did her dilated pupils waver from the straight line. Not once did her bosom lift with breath. "Thou! It is thou, then, O runner on the housetops by night!"
"One does not publish one's name from the housetops," replied the Russian, with a glimmer of pride in his eyes, "especially if it happen to be not quite obscure; but between friends, my dear baron between friends." "Yes. Then what are you doing in Tver?" enquired De Chauxville, with engaging frankness. "Ah, that is a long story. But I will tell you never fear I will tell you on the usual terms."
The enemy opened upon us a terrific fire, both from the columns in front and from the sharpshooters in the housetops in the city. After giving us battle as long as human endurance could bear the ordeal, they, like their companions before them, fled in confusion. Before making the direct attack, Howard attempted a diversion by endeavoring to turn Cobb's left.
The air was full of the rumor of great things. Now, perchance, human nature at last was going to reveal itself, the love and hope and comradeliness and joy tucked away so deep in its interlinings. Now, possibly, the streets were going to be full of singing, and the housetops were going to rejoice with the mellower stars. Anything was possible.
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