"They talk of war," he thought, "but this is the great battlefield
of mankind."
And then he began to wonder that he should walk so long in this
complicated scene, and not chance upon so much as the shadow of an
adventure for himself.
"All in good time," he reflected. "I am still a stranger, and
perhaps wear a strange air. But I must be drawn into the eddy
before long."
The night was already well advanced when a plump of cold rain fell
suddenly out of the darkness. Brackenbury paused under some trees,
and as he did so he caught sight of a hansom cabman making him a
sign that he was disengaged. The circumstance fell in so happily
to the occasion that he at once raised his cane in answer, and had
soon ensconced himself in the London gondola.
"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.
"Where you please," said Brackenbury.
And immediately, at a pace of surprising swiftness, the hansom
drove off through the rain into a maze of villas. One villa was so
like another, each with its front garden, and there was so little
to distinguish the deserted lamp-lit streets and crescents through
which the flying hansom took its way, that Brackenbury soon lost
all idea of direction.
He would have been tempted to believe that the cabman was amusing
himself by driving him round and round and in and out about a small
quarter, but there was something business-like in the speed which
convinced him of the contrary.
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