Page:Rudyard Kipling - A diversity of creatures.djvu/306

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294
A DIVERSITY OF CREATURES

them; but my head-gardener locks up all the tools at five o'clock."

'"Not on your life!" says Lundie. He was on deck again—as the high-class lawyer. "Right or wrong, if we attempt concealment of the bodies we're done for."

'"I'm glad of that," says Mankeltow, "because, after all, it ain't cricket to bury 'em."

'Somehow—but I know I ain't English—that consideration didn't worry me as it ought. An' besides, I was thinkin'—I had to—an' I'd begun to see a light 'way off—a little glimmerin' light o' salvation.

' "Then what are we to do?" says Walen. "Zigler, what do you advise? Your neck's in it too."

'"Gentlemen," I says, "something Lord Lundie let fall a while back gives me an idea. I move that this committee empowers Big Claus and Little Claus, who have elected to commit suicide in our midst, to leave the premises as they came. I'm asking you to take big chances," I says, "but they're all we've got," and then I broke for the bi-plane.

'Don't tell me the English can't think as quick as the next man when it's up to them! They lifted 'em out o' Flora's Temple—reverent, but not wastin' time—whilst I found out what had brought her down. One cylinder was misfirin'. I didn't stop to fix it. My Renzalaer will hold up on six. We've proved that. If her crew had relied on my guarantees, they'd have been half-way home by then, instead of takin' their seats