SOMERSET ran straight upstairs; the door of the drawing-room, contrary to all custom, was unlocked; and bursting in, the young man found Zero seated on a sofa in an attitude of singular dejection. Close beside him stood an untasted grog, the mark of strong preoccupation. The room besides was in confusion: boxes had been tumbled to and fro; the floor was strewn with keys and other implements; and in the midst of this disorder lay a lady's glove.
'I have come,' cried Somerset, 'to make an end of this.
Either you will instantly abandon all your schemes, or (cost what it may) I will denounce you to the police.'
'Ah!' replied Zero, slowly shaking his head. 'You are too late, dear fellow! I am already at the end of all my hopes, and fallen to be a laughing-stock and mockery. My reading,' he added, with a gentle despondency of manner, 'has not been much among romances; yet I recall from one a phrase that depicts my present state with critical exactitude; and you behold me sitting here "like a burst drum."'
'What has befallen you?' cried Somerset.
'My last batch,' returned the plotter wearily, 'like all the others, is a hollow mockery and a fraud. In vain do I combine the elements; in vain adjust the springs; and I have now arrived at such a pitch of disconsideration that (except yourself, dear fellow) I do not know a soul that I can face.
My subordinates themselves have turned upon me. What language have I heard to-day, what illiberality of sentiment, what pungency of expression! She came once; I could have pardoned that, for she was moved; but she returned, returned to announce to me this crushing blow; and, Somerset, she was very inhumane. Yes, dear fellow, I have drunk a bitter cup; the speech of females is remarkable for . . . well, well!
Denounce me, if you will; you but denounce the dead. I am extinct. It is strange how, at this supreme crisis of my life, I should be haunted by quotations from works of an inexact and even fanciful description; but here,' he added, 'is another: "Othello's occupation's gone." Yes, dear Somerset, it is gone; I am no more a dynamiter; and how, I ask you, after having tasted of these joys, am I to condescend to a less glorious life?'
'I cannot describe how you relieve me,' returned Somerset, sitting down on one of several boxes that had been drawn out into the middle of the floor. 'I had conceived a sort of maudlin toleration for your character; I have a great distaste, besides, for anything in the nature of a duty; and upon both grounds, your news delights me. But I seem to perceive,' he added, 'a certain sound of ticking in this box.'
'Yes,' replied Zero, with the same slow weariness of manner, 'I have set several of them going.'
'My God!' cried Somerset, bounding to his feet.
'Machines?'
'Machines!' returned the plotter bitterly. 'Machines indeed!
I blush to be their author. Alas!' he said, burying his face in his hands, 'that I should live to say it!'
'Madman!' cried Somerset, shaking him by the arm. 'What am I to understand? Have you, indeed, set these diabolical contrivances in motion? and do we stay here to be blown up?'
'"Hoist with his own petard?"' returned the plotter musingly.
'One more quotation: strange! But indeed my brain is struck with numbness. Yes, dear boy, I have, as you say, put my contrivance in motion. The one on which you are sitting, I have timed for half an hour. Yon other - '
'Half an hour! - ' echoed Somerset, dancing with trepidation.
'Merciful Heavens, in half an hour?'