“Yes, I mean to say,” said Turnbull, “and I mean to say something funnier still.  I have learnt everything I wanted to know from the partially black musician over there, who has taken a run in his war-paint to meet a friend in a quiet pub along the coast—­the noble savage has told me all about it.  The bottle containing our declaration, doctrines, and dying sentiments was washed up on Margate beach yesterday in the presence of one alderman, two bathing-machine men, three policemen, seven doctors, and a hundred and thirteen London clerks on a holiday, to all of whom, whether directly or indirectly, our composition gave enormous literary pleasure.  Buck up, old man, this story of ours is a switchback.  I have begun to understand the pulse and the time of it; now we are up in a cathedral and then we are down in a theatre, where they only play farces.  Come, I am quite reconciled—­let us enjoy the farce.”

But MacIan said nothing, and an instant afterwards Turnbull himself called out in an entirely changed voice:  “Oh, this is damnable!  This is not to be borne!”

MacIan followed his eye along the sand-hills.  He saw what looked like the momentary and waving figure of the nigger minstrel, and then he saw a heavy running policeman take the turn of the sand-hill with the smooth solemnity of a railway train.

XIII.  THE GARDEN OF PEACE

Up to this instant Evan MacIan had really understood nothing; but when he saw the policeman he saw everything.  He saw his enemies, all the powers and princes of the earth.  He suddenly altered from a staring statue to a leaping man of the mountains.

“We must break away from him here,” he cried, briefly, and went like a whirlwind over the sand ridge in a straight line and at a particular angle.  When the policeman had finished his admirable railway curve, he found a wall of failing sand between him and the pursued.  By the time he had scaled it thrice, slid down twice, and crested it in the third effort, the two flying figures were far in front.  They found the sand harder farther on; it began to be crusted with scraps of turf and in a few moments they were flying easily over an open common of rank sea-grass.  They had no easy business, however; for the bottle which they had so innocently sent into the chief gate of Thanet had called to life the police of half a county on their trail.  From every side across the grey-green common figures could be seen running and closing in; and it was only when MacIan with his big body broke down the tangled barrier of a little wood, as men break down a door with the shoulder; it was only when they vanished crashing into the underworld of the black wood, that their hunters were even instantaneously thrown off the scent.