He scrambled past me, and the girl, releasing me, ran after him. I followed. On we ran, till Lembken turned into a tiny room, once meant to be a hiding place, no doubt, but now doorless and bare. Again I heard the shouting. The mob was drawing near. On a perch beside the entrance sat the gaudy macaw, head on one side, preening her plumage. “The people’s friend!” she cackled. “The people’s friend! Friend—friend—friend—friend—frien—” With a cry of delight Lembken snatched at her. She fluttered to his shoulder. He turned, and, with monkey and bird against his sagging cheeks, he began to make his way along the passage. As he ran I saw another corridor at right angles to this, and, at the end, daylight and the waste of uprooted palms. The mob was sweeping past. They saw him; they howled and dashed to cut off his flight. Lembken saw them, doubled back, dashing in panic from room to room. The mob was everywhere about him, searching for him, blocking all exits; their howls were a continuous sound. They were upon him. Lembken fell on his knees and pulled a Ray rod from his robes. With shaking, nerveless fingers he forced up the guard. He held it to his breast; but it fell from his hand. “Kill me!” he muttered to the girl. She flung her arms about him; and thus the mob found them. The giant leaped at them. His bellowings shook the walls. He sprang for Lembken, caught him by the throat, and forced his head upward. I saw the loose spike in his hand. The monkey chattered, the parrot stretched out her neck and snapped, shrieking her phrases. Between the men the frail girl wrestled, dashing her weak fists into the giant’s face. The roaring mob choked the narrow corridor on either side. “Death to him!” they shrieked. “Death! Death!” The old man caught the words upon his tongue and screamed. “Not death!” he yelped. “I’m Lembken. I can’t die. I never thought of death—dying—going nowhere—nowhere—nothing—I want to live—” He cowered behind the girl, thrusting her between himself and his enemy. So furious were her struggles that she forced the giant away. She dashed her fists into his eyes again and again, until he turned on her and gripped her by the wrists, twisting her backward. He looked into her face for the first time. “Let him go!” she screamed. “Don’t hurt him. He is old—he is old—he has done no harm—he is the people’s friend—he has told me so—I love him—” The giant dropped her wrists and staggered back. His horror-painted face became a tragic mask. He moaned, and his hands groped impotently in the air for something that he failed to find. It was not the blood in his eyes that blinded him. For this was she whom he had sought, torn from his home, the last to share Lembken’s favor, the child whom I had seen dragged from the Council Hall, her innocent child’s heart loyal in his last hour to the only lover she knew. It wrung my heart, the pity of it: this blossom of love that sprang from that festering, rank soil of human baseness.