There was a loud hissing sound and then an indistinguishable flash as the bomb shot up the track and out into the night. After that the silence returned, but with a new quality now. After a long interval, Marc and Toffee started in their chairs as a distant rumble echoed back from the night. Marc closed his eyes and waited for the old house to stop trembling.... CHAPTER XIII Lord Asquith gazed out across Whittle Square and sighed an impeccable sigh that brought a new thinness to his lips, a greater flare to his aristocratic nostrils. It was evident that his Lordship had recently been in attendance of something quite odorous. "I have never witnessed anything so abysmal," he told Lady Asquith with dry authority. "That play has as much chance for a prolonged engagement as ... as...." He flicked his case at the Whittle monument and its bronzed tenant at the top. "... as that chap up there has of flying to the moon. Even Sir Lawrence couldn't have saved it." "Quite," Lady Asquith affirmed. "I'd rather be struck dead than attend another of these wretched American productions. May the fates deliver me." At that very moment there was a deafening roar, as all the world seemed to explode before them. The night suddenly burned with a sullen light, and the pavement beneath their feet shuddered. In the trembling silence that followed, Lady Asquith, under the terrifying impression that the fates were doing their best to oblige her in her wish to be separated from the American theatre, emitted a small cry and promptly fell into a swoon at her husband's feet. Lord Asquith gazed down at his fallen lady with sad perplexity. "Oh, dear!" he said. Then he shrugged. "But I suppose you really did bring it on yourself, old girl." Then suddenly struck with a horrifying thought, he glanced quickly in the direction of the monument in the square. He started back with a cough of horror. "Lord above!" he cried. Across the square, though the night elsewhere was starkly clear, the monument had become engulfed in a heavy mist. Even as Lord Asquith watched, the fog seemed to disappear, but in a most peculiar manner. It was as though the vapors were being absorbed into the marble of the monument itself. And then, staggeringly, the entire structure began almost imperceptibly to rise. "Gad!" his lordship gasped. "The old bloater's setting sail!" He removed his glasses and wiped them quickly. "And taking his monument with him! Coo!" He started sharply as a hand fell to his arm. "Hallo!" He whirled about to find a pallid-eyed, slightly vaporish little man staring down at Lady Asquith with baffled concern. "She just resting?" he inquired thickly, "or did somebody hit her?" His lordship glanced down at his wife. "She's been struck dead by the fates," he explained pleasantly. "She rather asked for it, you know."