The King had still little beyond the confused sense of a man caught in a torrent--the feeling of men eddying by. Then something happened which he was never able afterwards to describe, and which we cannot describe for him. Suddenly in the dark entrance, between the broken gates of a garden, there appeared framed a flaming figure. Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back, and his mane like a lion's, stood with his great sword point upwards, the red raiment of his office flapping round him like the red wings of an archangel. And the King saw, he knew not how, something new and overwhelming. The great green trees and the great red robes swung together in the wind. The sword seemed made for the sunlight. The preposterous masquerade, born of his own mockery, towered over him and embraced the world. This was the normal, this was sanity, this was nature; and he himself, with his rationality and his detachment and his black frock-coat, he was the exception and the accident--a blot of black upon a world of crimson and gold. BOOK IV CHAPTER I--_The Battle of the Lamps_ Mr. Buck, who, though retired, frequently went down to his big drapery stores in Kensington High Street, was locking up those premises, being the last to leave. It was a wonderful evening of green and gold, but that did not trouble him very much. If you had pointed it out, he would have agreed seriously, for the rich always desire to be artistic. He stepped out into the cool air, buttoning up his light yellow coat, and blowing great clouds from his cigar, when a figure dashed up to him in another yellow overcoat, but unbuttoned and flying behind him. "Hullo, Barker!" said the draper. "Any of our summer articles? You're too late. Factory Acts, Barker. Humanity and progress, my boy." "Oh, don't chatter," cried Barker, stamping. "We've been beaten." "Beaten--by what?" asked Buck, mystified. "By Wayne." Buck looked at Barker's fierce white face for the first time, as it gleamed in the lamplight. "Come and have a drink," he said. They adjourned to a cushioned and glaring buffet, and Buck established himself slowly and lazily in a seat, and pulled out his cigar-case. "Have a smoke," he said. Barker was still standing, and on the fret, but after a moment's hesitation, he sat down as if he might spring up again the next minute. They ordered drinks in silence. "How did it happen?" asked Buck, turning his big bold eyes on him. "How the devil do I know?" cried Barker. "It happened like--like a dream. How can two hundred men beat six hundred? How can they?" "Well," said Buck, coolly, "how did they? You ought to know."