Far away a travelling menagerie was encamping. It had scented
the wild animals.
Doctor Levillier felt like that horse. A longing to bolt for his life
came upon him. He had an impulse to cry out, to run forward, to escape
out of the atmosphere created by this evil nature, this deadly life. He
could have crept like a coward into the shadow of one of the areas of
Henrietta Street, and sheltered there till the thing went past. And, just
because he had this almost overmastering desire to flee, he stood still,
paused abruptly, and, without turning his head, listened. At a distance,
and he judged, round the corner of the street he heard the sound of a
quickening footstep advancing in his direction. He waited, under the
obligation of exerting all his powers of self-control; for his limbs
trembled to movement, his heart beat to the march, and every separate
vein, every separate hair of his body, seemed crying out piercingly to
begone. The footstep approached. Doctor Levillier heard it turning the
corner.
"Now," thought he, "this person will see me waiting here. Will he come
on? Will he pass me? And if he does, shall I be able to await, to endure
the incident?"
And he listened, as a scout might listen in the night for sounds of the
hidden enemy.
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