I have felt like a rat in a
cage with a terrier watching me for the last month, and long to be
on horseback again, with the chance of making a fight for my life.
What a fool Bathurst was to throw away the chance!"
Bathurst, his work done, had looked into the hall where the others
were gathered, and hearing that the Doctor was alone on watch had
gone up to him.
"I was just thinking, Bathurst," the Doctor said, as he joined
him, "about that fight today. It seems to me that whatever comes
of this business, you and I are not likely to be among those who
go down when the place is taken."
"How is that, Doctor? Why is our chance better than the rest? I
have no hope myself that any will be spared."
"I put my faith in the juggler, Bathurst. Has it not struck you
that the first picture you saw has come true?"
"I have never given it a thought for weeks," Bathurst said; "certainly
I have not thought of it today. Yes, now you speak of it, it has
come true. How strange! I put it aside as a clever trick--one
that I could not understand any more than I did the others, but,
knowing myself, it seemed beyond the bounds of possibility that it
could come true. Anything but that I would have believed, but, as
I told you, whatever might happen in the future, I should not be
found fighting desperately as I saw myself doing there. It is true
that I did so, but it was only a sort of a frenzy. I did not fire
a shot, as Wilson may have told you.
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