Josaphat did not answer. Yes, the answer shouted in his throat. But he could not form the words. There was a fist at his throat, strangling him.... God—Almighty God in highest heaven, was it Joh Fredersen who was standing before him? Joh Fredersen made an uncertain step towards him. He bent his head low to look at him the more closely. He nodded again. “I know you,” he said tonelessly. “You are Josaphat and you were my first secretary. I sent you away. I treated you cruelly. I did you wrong and I ruined you.... I beg your forgiveness.... I am sorry that I was ever cruel to you or to anyone else.... Forgive me.... Forgive me, Josaphat, for ten hours I have not known where my son is.... For ten hours, Josaphat, I have been sending all the men I could get hold of, down into that damned city to look for my son, and I know it is senseless, and I know it is quite pointless, the day is breaking, and I am talking and talking and I know that I am a fool but perhaps, perhaps you know where my son is...?” “Captured,” said Josaphat, and it was as though he ripped the word from his gullet, and feared to bleed to death there-from. “Captured....” A stupid smile hovered over Joh Fredersen’s face. “What does that mean ... captured...?” “The mob has captured him, Joh Fredersen!” “Captured—?” “Yes.” “My son—?” “Yes!—Freder, your son—!” A senseless, pitiable, animal sound broke from Joh Fredersen’s mouth. His mouth stood open, distorted—his hands rose as in childish defence, to ward off a blow which had already fallen. His voice said, quite high and piteously: “My son...?” “They took him prisoner,”—Josaphat tore the words out—“because they sought a victim for their despair, and for the fury of their immeasurable, inconceivable agony. When they saw the black water running towards them from the shafts of the underground railway, and when they realised that, as the result of the stopping of the pumps, the whole workmen’s town had been flooded out, then they went mad with despair. They say that some mothers, blind and deaf to all remonstrance, tried, as if possessed, to dive down through the flooded shafts, and just the terrible absoluteness of the futility of any attempt at rescue has turned them into beasts and they lust for revenge....” “Revenge ... on whom?” “On the girl who seduced them....” “On the girl....” “Yes....” “Go on....” “They have taken captive the girl, on whom they put the blame of all this horror.... Freder wanted to save her, for he loves the girl.... They have taken him captive and are forcing him to look on and see how his beloved dies.... They have built the bonfire before the cathedral.... They are dancing round the bonfire.... They are yelling: ‘We have captured the son of Joh Fredersen and his beloved’ ... and I know—I know: He’ll never get away from them alive...!”