He thought of all the human things in his story--of the Chinese lanterns in Saffron Park, of the girl's red hair in the garden, of the honest, beer-swilling sailors down by the dock, of his loyal companions standing by.

Perhaps he had been chosen as a champion of all these fresh and kindly things to cross swords with the enemy of all creation.

"After all," he said to himself, "I am more than a devil; I am a man.

I can do the one thing which Satan himself cannot do--I can die," and as the word went through his head, he heard a faint and far-off hoot, which would soon be the roar of the Paris train.
He fell to fighting again with a supernatural levity, like a Mohammedan panting for Paradise.

As the train came nearer and nearer he fancied he could see people putting up the floral arches in Paris; he joined in the growing noise and the glory of the great Republic whose gate he was guarding against Hell.