The car had gone. They could see it far down the road, guarded by a group of Pan-Antis. A cordon of the enemy had been thrown completely round the Home and escape was impossible. Worse still, the treachery of Miss Chuff must have been discovered, and they trembled to think what retaliation the Bishop might devise. 

 In this moment of crisis Quimbleton regained his customary hardihood. Quilted in his lilac garments, with the white hedge of beard tossing in the breeze, he looked the dashing leader. 

 "There's only one thing to do," he said. "We're surrounded in this place. We must go to the Home, make common cause with the prisoners there, and lead them in a sudden sally of escape." 

 

 

 CHAPTER VI 

 DEPARTED SPIRITS 

 If Bishop Chuff desired to make people stop thinking about alcohol, his plan of seizing them and shutting them up in the grounds of the Federal Home at Cana was a quaint way of attaining this purpose. For all the victims, who had been suddenly arrested in the course of their daily concerns, accused (before a rum-head court martial) of harboring illicit alcoholic desires, and driven over to Cana in crowded motor-trucks, now had very little else to brood about. In the golden light and fragrance of a summer afternoon, here they were surrounded by all the apparatus to restrain alcoholic excess, and not even the slightest exhilaration of spirit to justify the depressing scene. It was annoying to see frequent notices such as: This Entrance for Brandy-Topers; or Vodka Patients in This Ward; or Inmates Must Not Bite Off the Door-Knobs. It seemed carrying a jest too far when these citizens, most of whom had not even smelt a drink in two years, found themselves billeted into padded cells and confronted by rows of strait-jackets. Moreover, the Home had lain unused for many months: it was dusty, dilapidated, and of a moldy savor. Some of the unwilling visitors, finding that the grounds included a strip of sandy beach, took their ordeal with reasonable philosophy. "Since we are to be slaves," they said, "at least let's have some serf bathing." And donning (with a shudder) the rather 

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