Standing a little to the left of her, a second man, taller and thinner than the other, raised his right arm and pointed a green and very odd-looking pistol at the little boy named Leo. Burton, still running toward them, heard a sharp gasp—phut! The youngster hit the grass, rolled, and became still.

“Again,” the short man snarled at Emma Darwin. “Where is your husband?”

“We have company, Mr. Hare,” the taller man declared upon seeing Burton.

“Ah, so we do, Mr. Burke!”

Hare threw Mrs. Darwin aside and he and his companion turned to face the explorer. They were dressed identically in long black surtouts, black waistcoats, and knee-length breeches that gave way to pale yellow tights. Their white shirts had high cheek-scraping collars. Yellow cravats encased their necks. Their shoes were buckled and blocky-heeled.

Burton skidded to a halt in front of the taller man, Damien Burke, who said, “Good day to you, Mr. Darwin. I’m afraid I’ve frightened your children.”

He was slightly hunchbacked and extremely bald but with a short fringe of hair around his ears that curled into enormous “Piccadilly weeper” sideburns. His face hung in a naturally maudlin expression.

Burton said, “Sorry, wrong man,” and launched the heel of his hand up into Burke’s chin. The cracking blow sent Palmerston’s man sprawling backward and the weapon fell from his fingers. Burton had just enough time to register that, though pistol-shaped, it more resembled some sort of spineless cactus, before Hare crashed into him. The thug was immensely broad, with massive shoulders and long, thick arms. His head was crowned with an upstanding mop of pure white hair that angled around his square jawline to a tuft beneath the heavy chin. His pale grey eyes were deeply embedded in gristly sockets; he had a splayed, many-times-broken nose and an extraordinarily wide mouth filled with large flat teeth. The latter were displayed in full as Hare caught Burton around the neck, crushed his windpipe in the crook of his arm, grinned broadly, and bent him double.

Burton struggled for breath as small dots began to swim in front of his eyes. He reached down with both hands, wrapped them around Hare’s right knee, and dug his thumbs in beside the two big tendons there, brutally forcing them apart. Hare screeched and fell, dragging Burton down with him. The explorer stabbed an elbow into muscle-padded ribs, broke free as Hare’s grip loosened, and scrambled away from him.

He saw Darwin rushing to the fallen children and the other youngsters running to their mother.

Trounce hollered, “Burton!”

“Get the other one!” the explorer croaked, and was in the middle of gesturing toward Burke, who was getting to his feet, when Hare’s fist connected with the side of his head. Blocking the follow-up—more by luck than skill, for his senses were still reeling and he was off balance—Burton thudded his knee into Hare’s side and pushed himself away. He staggered to his feet and stood swaying. Hare faced him, still grinning, and assumed a fighting stance unfamiliar to the explorer but which he vaguely recognised as Oriental.

Off to the left, Trounce collided with Burke and they went down in a tangle of thrashing limbs.

Hare’s right fist swept forward. Burton moved to dodge the blow but it never arrived. Instead, his opponent used the mock punch as a counterbalance, swivelled, and kicked, his heel whipping up into Burton’s nose. The explorer was sent spinning backward, blood spraying around him. Without any awareness of what he was doing, he stopped himself from falling, parried a chopping hand, and—shooting out his arm—grabbed his opponent’s hair. He yanked inward and delivered a savage headbutt to Hare’s mouth, crushing the man’s lips into his teeth. His adversary slumped. Burton twisted his grip and sank his teeth into the other’s cheek, clamping hard until he felt hot blood welling. Hare shrieked and pushed him away with such force that Burton’s feet left the ground. The explorer thudded down, teetered, regained his equilibrium, and spat a lump of wet flesh onto the grass.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Trounce fall. The detective didn’t get up.

Burke called, “Do you require assistance, Mr. Hare?”

Hare, standing with his eyes fixed on Burton, his massive arms hanging and blood bubbling from the hole in the left side of his face, made a dismissive gesture then charged at Burton like a stampeding bull. He leaped, revolved through the air, and kicked. Burton ducked, snatched at the man’s ankle, and using Hare’s own momentum spun and slammed him down. Palmerston’s thug tried to dodge away but Burton sprang forward and swung his boot into the man’s head, once, then again, and a third time.

Hare flopped back and lay still.

Using his sleeve to wipe the blood from his mouth, Burton looked up and, though his vision was blurred, saw Mrs. Darwin collapsed with children crying over her prone form; saw Trounce motionless on the sward; and saw Burke dragging an unconscious Darwin to one of the steam spheres. He started toward the two vehicles but hadn’t taken more than two steps before meaty fingers closed around his left wrist and jerked him around. He found himself face to face with the ruined features of Gregory Hare and mumbled, “Why won’t you bloody well stay down?”

Hare gave a malignant hiss, raised his hand, and chopped it into Burton’s forearm. A horrible crunch sounded. Burton fell to his knees as white-hot pain flared through him.

“Mr. Hare!” Burke shouted. “It is time to leave.”

“I have to finish this one, Mr. Burke.”

“No time to waste on irrelevancies. Come along.”

Hare, with blood streaming down his neck and soaking into his clothes, glared down at Burton and said, “You’d better pray we never meet again.”

He stumbled off toward the vehicles.

Burton saw Burke sit the senseless Darwin against one of the spheres, open a hatch at the rear of the vehicle, then lift the scientist and bundle him into what was obviously a storage compartment.

Hare reached the other sphere and clambered into it. With a puff of steam, it rolled, turned, and sped away from the house and onto the Luxted Road.

Damien Burke slammed the hatch shut, drew the strange cactus-like pistol from his jacket, and pointed it at Burton.

“Don’t move!” he said.

Burton snarled and forced himself to his feet, cradling his broken left arm in his right.

There came that soft sound again—phut!—and a seven-inch spine embedded itself into the lower-left side of Burton’s waistcoat.

He gingerly moved his arm aside and looked down at the quill. The front half of it was glistening with a clear substance. He took hold of the dry end and plucked it out.

The second sphere went rumbling after the first.

Tottering across the lawn, Burton bent over Trounce and felt his heart. The Scotland Yard man was still alive. One of the spines was sticking out of his shoulder. Burton pulled it out, shook the detective, but received only a groan in response.

He moved over to little Leo. The boy was also deeply unconscious but alive, with one of the needles in him.

Burton approached the other children, all gathered around their mother. He selected the eldest, a girl of about sixteen years, squatted down next to her, and put his hand on her shoulder.

“What’s your name?”

“Etty,” she replied, tearfully.

“Look,” he said, and taking by its tip the spine that was in Emma Darwin’s neck, withdrew it.

“See where it’s wet?” he said. “That is what has sent your mother to sleep. Go to the other children and take out the needles, but be careful only to hold them by the dry parts. Do you understand?”

She nodded, her lower lip trembling. “Yes, sir.”

“Good girl. They’ll all wake up. My friend will, too.” He nodded toward Trounce. “And when he does, he’ll get help for you all.”