With a mighty rush the gamblers leaped for the different poles.  Barry Conant with lightning rapidity gave his orders to twenty of his assistants, who, when Bob Brownley called for Conant, had gathered around their chief.  In less than a minute the dollar-battle of the age was on, a battle such as no man had ever seen before.  It required no supernatural wisdom for any man on the floor to see that Bob Brownley’s seed had fallen in superheated soil, that his until now secret hellite was about to be tested.  It needed no expert in the mystic art of deciphering the wall hieroglyphics of Old Hag Fate to see that the hands on the clock of the “System” were approaching twelve.  It needed no ear trained to hear human heart and soul beats to detect the approaching sound of onrushing doom to the stock-gambling structure.  The deafening roar of the brokers that had broken the stillness following Robert Brownley’s fateful speech had awakened echoes that threatened to shake down the Exchange walls.  The surging mob on the outside was roaring like a million hungry lions in an Arbestan run at slaughter time.

Chapter X.

The instant after the gong sounded Bob Brownley was alone on the floor at the foot of the president’s desk.  His form was swaying like a reed on the edge of the cyclone’s path.  I jumped to his side.  His brother, who had during Bob’s harangue been vainly endeavouring to beat his way through the crowd, was there first.  “For God’s sake, Bob, hear me.  Word came from your house half an hour ago of the miracle:  Beulah has awakened to her past.  Her mind is clear; the nurses are frantic for you to come to her.”

He got no further.  With a mad bellow and a bound, like a tortured bull that sees the arena walls go down, Bob rushed out through the nearest door, which, I thanked God, was a side one leading to the street where the crowd was thinnest.  He cast a wild look around.  His eyes lighted on an empty automobile whose chauffeur had deserted to the crowd.  It was the work of a second to crank it; of another to jump into the front seat.  Quick as had been his movement, I was behind him in the rear seat.  With a bound the great machine leaped through the crowd.

“In the name of Christ, Bob, be careful,” I yelled, as he hurled the iron monster through the throng, scattering it to the right and left as the mower scatters the sheaves in the wheat fields.  Some were crushed beneath its wheels.  Bob Brownley heard not their screams, heard not the curses of those who escaped.  He was on his feet, his body crouched low over the steering-wheel, which he grasped in his vise-like hands.  His hatless head was thrust far out, as though it strove to get to Beulah Sands ahead of his body.  His teeth were set, and as I had jumped into the machine I had noted that his eyes were those of a maniac, who saw sanity just ahead if he could but get to it in time.  His ears were