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Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
238
The
thunder
rumbled
around
the
hills,
and
now
and
again
there
was
a
faint
glare
on
the
horizon.
Would
Judas
bump
Magdalen?
Opinion
on
the
raft
seemed
to
be
divided.
But
the
sanguine
spirits
were
in
a
majority.
“If
I
were
making
a
book
on
the
event,”
said
a
middle-aged
clergyman,
with
that
air
of
breezy
emancipation
which
is
so
distressing
to
the
laity,
“I’d
bet
two
to
one
we
bump.”
“You
demean
your
cloth,
sir,”
the
Duke
would
have
said,
“without
cheating
its
disabilities,”
had
not
his
mouth
been
stopped
by
a
loud
and
prolonged
thunder-clap.
In
the
hush
thereafter,
came
the
puny
sound
of
a
gunshot.
The
boats
were
starting.
Would
Judas
bump
Magdalen?
Would
Judas
be
head
of
the
river?
Strange,
thought
the
Duke,
that
for
him,
standing
as
he
did
on
the
peak
of
dandyism,
on
the
brink
of
eternity,
this
trivial
question
of
boats
could
have
importance.
And
yet,
and
yet,
for
this
it
was
that
his
heart
was
beating.
A
few
minutes
hence,
an
end
to
victors
and
vanquished
alike;
and
yet...
A
sudden
white
vertical
streak
slid
down
the
sky.
Then
there
was
a
consonance
to
split
the
drums
of
the
world’s
ears,
followed
by
a
horrific
rattling
as
of
actual
artillery--tens
of
thousands
of
gun-carriages
simultaneously
at
the
gallop,
colliding,
crashing,
heeling
over
in
the
blackness.
Then,
and
yet
more
awful,
silence;
the
little
earth
cowering
voiceless
under
the
heavens’
menace.
And,
audible
in
the
hush
now,
a
faint
sound;
the
sound
of
the
runners
on
the
towing-path
cheering
the
crews
forward,
forward.
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