He extended a muddy lump of hand, and staggered a pace towards me. His
face worked with emotion, little lumps of mud kept falling from it. He
looked as damaged and pitiful as any living creature I have ever seen, and
his remark therefore amazed me exceedingly.
"Gratulate me," he gasped; "gratulate me!"
"Congratulate you!" said I. "Good heavens! What for?"
"I've done it."
"You _have_. What on earth caused that explosion?"
A gust of wind blew his words away. I understood him to say that it wasn't
an explosion at all. The wind hurled me into collision with him, and we
stood clinging to one another.
"Try and get back--to my bungalow," I bawled in his ear. He did not hear
me, and shouted something about "three martyrs--science," and also
something about "not much good." At the time he laboured under the
impression that his three attendants had perished in the whirlwind.
Happily this was incorrect. Directly he had left for my bungalow they had
gone off to the public-house in Lympne to discuss the question of the
furnaces over some trivial refreshment.
I repeated my suggestion of getting back to my bungalow, and this time he
understood. We clung arm-in-arm and started, and managed at last to reach
the shelter of as much roof as was left to me. For a space we sat in
arm-chairs and panted. All the windows were broken, and the lighter
articles of furniture were in great disorder, but no irrevocable damage
was done. Happily the kitchen door had stood the pressure upon it, so that
all my crockery and cooking materials had survived.
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