In sad and eloquent words he had painted for her what the great fraud

had meant to thousands. He told of upright and godly men stricken down

because their faith was not strong enough to bear the blow. There was

the curate at Wigan, who had shot himself and left a heart-breaking

letter of mad mockery behind him; there were other cases of suicide.

There was the surging tide of crime, rising ever higher and higher as

the clergy lost all their influence in the slums of London and the great

towns. He told her of Harold Spence, mentioning him as "a journalist

friend of mine," explaining what a good fellow he was, and how he had

overcome his temptations with the aid of religion and faith. And he

described his own return to Lincoln's Inn, the disorder, and Harold's

miserable story. She could picture it all so well, that side of life.

She knew its every detail. And, moreover, Gortre had said "the evil was

growing and spreading each day, each hour." True as it was that the

myriad lamps of the Faithful only burned the brighter for the

surrounding gloom, yet that gloom was growing and rolling up, even as

the clouds on which her unseeing eyes were fixed as she walked along the

shore. Men were becoming reckless; the hosts of evil triumphed on every

side.

The thought which came to her as Gortre had gradually unfolded the

object of his visit was startling. She herself might perhaps prove to be

the pivot upon which these great events were turning. It was possible

that by her words, that by means of her help, the dark conspiracy might

be unveiled and the world freed from its burden. She herself might be

able to do all this, a kind of thank-offering for the miraculous change

that had been wrought in her life.

Yet, when it was all summed up, how little she had to tell Gortre after

all! True, her information was of some value; it seemed to confirm what

he and his friends suspected. But still it was very little, and it meant

long delay, if she could provide no other key to open this dark door.

And meanwhile souls were dying and sinking....

She had asked Gortre to come to her again in a week.

In that time, she had said, she might have some further information for

him.

And now she was out here, alone on the sands, to ask her soul and God

what she was to do.

The clouds fell lower, a cutting wind began to moan and cry over the

sand, which was swept up and swirled in her face. And still she went on

with a bitterness and chill as of death in her heart.

She knew her power over her former lover,--if that pure word could

describe such an unhallowed passion,--knew her power well. He would be

as wax in her hands, and it had always been so. From the very first she

had done what she liked with him, and there had always been an

undercurrent of contempt in her thoughts that a man could be led so

easily, could be made the doll and puppet of his own passion. Nor did

she doubt that her power still remained. She felt sure of that. Even in

her seclusion some news of his frantic attempts to find her had reached

her. Her beauty still remained, heightened indeed by the slow complaint

from which she was suffering. He knew nothing of that. And, as for the

rest--the rouge-pot, the belladonna--well, they were still available,

though she had thought to have done with them for ever.

The idea began to emerge from the mist, as it were, and to take form and

colour. She thought definitely of it, though with horror; looked it in

the face, though shuddering as she did so.

It resolved itself into a statement, a formula, which rang and dinned

itself repeatedly into her consciousness like the ominous strokes of a

bell heard through the turmoil of the gathering storm,--

"_If I go back to Bob and pretend I'm tired of being good, he will tell

me all he's done._"

Over and over again the girl repeated the sentence to herself. It glowed

in her brain, and burnt it like letters of heated wire. She looked up at

the leaden canopy which held the wind, and it flashed out at her in

letters of violet lightning. The wind carved it in the sand,--

"_If I go back to Bob and pretend I'm tired of being good, he will tell

me what he has done._"

Could she do this thing for the sake of Gortre, for the sake of the

world? What did it mean exactly? She would be sinning terribly once

more, going back to the old life. It was possible that she might never

be able to break away again after achieving her purpose; one did not

twice escape hell. It would mean that she sinned a deadly sin in order

to help others. Ought she to do that! Was that right?

The wind fifed round her, shrieking.

_Could she do this thing?_

She would only be sinning with her body, not with her heart, and Christ

would know why she did so. Would He cast her out for this?

The struggle went on in her brain. She was not a subtle person, unused

to any self-communing that was not perfectly straightforward and simple.

The efforts she was making now were terribly hard for her to endure. Yet

she forced her mind to the work by a great effort of will, summoned all

her flagging energies to high consideration.

If she went back it _might_ mean utter damnation, even though she found

out what she wanted to find out. She had been a Christian so short a

time, she knew very little of the truth about these matters.

In her misery and struggle she began more and more to think in this way.

Suddenly she saw the thing, as she fancied, and indeed said half aloud

to herself, "in a common-sense light." Her face worked horribly, though

she was quite unconscious of it.

"It's better that one person, especially one that's been as bad as I

have, should go to hell than hundreds and thousands of others."

And then her decision was taken.

The light died out of her face, the hope also. She became old in a

sudden moment.

And, with one despairing prayer for forgiveness, she began to walk

towards her cottage--there was a fast train to town.

She believed that there could hardly be forgiveness for her act, and yet

the thought of "the others" gave her strength to sin.

And so, out of her great love for Christ, this poor harlot set out to

sin a sin which she thought would take Him away from her for ever.

END OF BOOK II

BOOK III

" ... Woman fearing and trembling"

CHAPTER I

WHAT IT MEANT TO THE WORLD'S WOMEN

In her house in the older, early-Victorian remnants of Kensington, Mrs.

Hubert Armstrong sat at breakfast. Her daughter, a pretty,

unintellectual girl, was pouring out tea with a suggestion of flippancy

in her manner. The room was grave and somewhat formal. Portraits of

Matthew Arnold, Professor Green, and Mark Pattison hung upon the sombre,

olive walls.

Over the mantel-shelf, painted in ornamental chocolate-coloured letters,

the famous authoress's pet motto was austerely blazoned,--

"_The decisive events of the world take place in the intellect._"

Indeed, save for the bright-haired girl at the urn, the room struck just

that note. It would be difficult to imagine an ordinary conversation

taking place there. It was a place in which solid chunks of thought were

gravely handed about.

Mrs. Armstrong wore a flowing morning wrap of dark red material. It was

clasped at the smooth white throat by a large cameo brooch, a dignified

bauble once the property of George Eliot. The clear, steady eyes, the

smooth bands of shining hair, the full, calm lips of the lady were all

eloquent of splendid unemotional health, assisted by a careful system

of hygiene.

She was opening her letters, cutting the envelopes carefully with a

silver knife.

"Shall I give you some more tea, Mother?" the daughter asked in a

somewhat impatient voice. The offer was declined, and the girl rose to

go. "I'm off now to skate with the Tremaines at Henglers," she said, and

hurriedly left the room.

Mrs. Armstrong sighed in a sort of placid wonder, as Minerva might have

sighed coming suddenly upon Psyche running races with Cupid in a wood,

and turned to another letter.

It was written in firm, strong writing on paper headed with some

official-looking print.

THE WORLD'S WOMAN'S LEAGUE

LONDON HEADQUARTERS,

100 REGENT STREET, S. W.

SECRETARY, MISS PAULL

"MY DEAR CHARLOTTE,--I should be extremely glad to see you here

to-day about lunch time. I must have a long and important talk with

you. The work is in a bad way. I know you are extremely busy, but

trust to see you as the matters for conference are urgent.

Your affectionate Sister,

"CATHERINE PAULL."

Miss Paull was a well-known figure in what may be called "executive"

life. Both she and her elder sister, Mrs. Armstrong, had been daughters

of an Oxford tutor, and had become immersed in public affairs early in

life. While the elder became a famous novelist and leader of "cultured

doubt," the younger had remained unmarried and thrown herself with great

eagerness into the movement which had for its object the strengthening

of woman's position and the lightening of her burdens, no less in

England than over the whole world.

The "World's Woman's League" was a great unsectarian society with

tentacles all over the globe. The Indian lady missionaries and doctors,

who worked in the zenanas, were affiliated to it. The English and

American vigilance societies for the safe-guarding of girls, the women

of the furtive students' clubs in Russia, the Melbourne society for the

supply of domestic workers in the lonely up-country stations of

Australia, all, while having their own corporate and separate

existences, were affiliated to, and in communication with, the central

offices of the League in Regent Street.

The League was all-embracing. Christian, non-Christian, or heathen, it

mattered nothing. It aimed at the gigantic task of centralising all the

societies for the welfare of women throughout the globe.

On the board of directors one found the names and titles of all the

humanitarians of Europe.

The working head of this vast organisation was the thin, active woman of

middle age whose name figured in a hundred blue-books, whose speeches

and articles were sometimes of international importance, whose political

power was undoubtable--Miss Catherine Paull.

The most important function of the League, or one of its most important

functions, was the yearly publication of a huge report or statement of

more than a thousand pages. This annual was recognised universally as

the most trustworthy and valuable summary of the progress of women in

the world. It was quoted in Parliament a hundred times each session; its

figures were regarded as authoritative in every way.

This report was published every May, and as Mrs. Hubert Armstrong drove

to Regent Street in her brougham she realised that points in connection

with it were to be discussed, possibly with the various sectional

editors, possibly with Miss Paull alone.

As was natural, so distinguished an example of the "higher woman" as

Mrs. Armstrong was a great help to the League, and her near relationship

to the secretary made her help and advice in constant request.

The office occupied two extensive floors in the quadrant, housing an

army of women clerks, typewriters, and a literary staff almost

exclusively feminine. Here, from morning till night, was a hum of busy

activity quite foreign to the office controlled by the more drone-like

men. Miss Paull contrived to interest the most insignificant of her

girls in the work that was to be done, making each one feel that in the

performance of her task lay not only the means of earning a weekly wage,

but of doing something for women all over the world.

In short, the League was an admirable and powerful institution, presided

over by an admirable and earnest woman of wonderful organising ability

and the gift of tact, that _extreme_ tact necessary in dealing with

hundreds of societies officered and ruled by women whose official

activities did not always quell that feminine jealousy and bickering

which generally militate against success.

It was some weeks since Mrs. Armstrong had seen her sister or

communicated with her. The great events in Jerusalem, the chaos into

which the holders of the old creeds had been thrown, had meant a series

of platform and journalistic triumphs for the novelist. Her importance

had increased a thousand-fold, her presence was demanded everywhere, and

she had quite lost touch with the League for a time.

As she entered her sister's room she was beaming with satisfaction at

the memory of the past few weeks, and anticipating with pleasure the

congratulations that would be forthcoming. Miss Paull, in the main,

agreed with her sister's opinions, though her extraordinarily strenuous

life and busy activities in other directions prevented her public

adherence to them.

Moreover, her position as head of the League, which included so many

definitely Christian societies, made it inadvisable for her to take a

prominent controversial part as Mrs. Armstrong did.

The secretary's room was large and well lit by double windows, which

prevented the roar of the Regent Street traffic from becoming too

obtrusive.

Except that there was some evidence of order and neatness on the three

great writing-tables, and that the books on the shelves were all in

their places, there was nothing to distinguish the place from the

private room of a busy solicitor or merchant.

Perhaps the only thing which gave the place any really individual note

was a large brass kettle, which droned on the fire, and a sort of

sideboard with a good many teacups and a glass jar full of what seemed

to be sponge cakes.

The two women greeted each other affectionately. Then Miss Paull sent

away her secretary, who had been writing with her, expressing her desire

to be quite alone for an hour or more.

"I want to discuss the report with you, Charlotte," said Miss Paull,

deftly pouring some hot water into a green stone-ware teapot.

She removed her _pince-nez_, which had become clouded with the steam,

and waited for Mrs. Armstrong to speak.

"I expected that was it when I got your note, dear," said the novelist.

"I am sorry I have been so much away of late. But, of course, you will

have seen how my time has been taken up. Since all Our contentions have

been so remarkably established, of course one is looked to a great

deal. I have to be everywhere just at present. _John Mulgrave_ has been

through three more editions during the last fortnight."

"Yes, Charlotte," answered the sister, "one hears of you on all sides.

It is a wonderful triumph from one point of view."

Mrs. Armstrong looked up quickly, with surprise in her eyes. There was a

strange lack of enthusiasm in the secretary's tone. Indeed, it was even

less than unenthusiastic; it hinted almost of dislike, nearly of dismay.

It could not be jealousy of the blaze of notoriety which had fallen upon

Mrs. Armstrong, the lady knew her sister too well for that. For one

brief moment she allowed herself the unworthy suspicion that Miss Paull

had been harbouring Christian leanings, or had, in the stress and worry

of overwork, permitted herself a sentimental adherence to the

Christ-myth.

But it was only for a single moment that such thoughts remained in her

brain. She dismissed them at once as disloyal to her sister and

undignified for herself.

"I don't quite understand, Catherine," she said. "Surely from _every_

point of view this glorious vindication of the truth is of

_incalculable_ benefit to mankind. How can it be otherwise? Now that we

know the great teacher Jesus----"

She was beginning somewhat on the lines of her public utterances, with a

slightly inspired look which, though habit had made mechanical, was

still sincere, when her sister checked her with some asperity.

"That is all well and good," she said, her rather sharp, animated

features becoming more harsh and eager as she spoke. "You, Charlotte,

are at the moment concerned with the future and with abstractions. I am

busied with the present and with _facts_. However I may share your

gladness at this vindication, in my official capacity, and more, in the

interests of my life work, I am bound to deplore what has happened. I

deplore it grievously."

Placid and equable as was her usual temper of mind, Mrs. Armstrong was

hardly proof against such a sweeping assertion as this.

Her face flushed slightly.

"Please explain," she said somewhat coldly.

"That is why I wanted you to come to-day," answered Miss Paull. "I very

much fear you will be more than startled at what I have to tell you and

show you. My facts are all ready--piteous, heart-breaking facts, too.

_We_ know, here, what is going on below the surface. _We_ are confronted

by statistics, and theories pale before them. Our system is perfect."

She made a movement of her arm and pointed to a small adjacent table, on

which were arranged various documents for inspection.

The novelist followed the glance, curiously disturbed by the sadness of

the other's voice and the bitterness of her manner. "Show me what you

mean, dear," she said.

Miss Paull got up and went to the table. "I will begin with points of

local interest," she said, "that is, with the English statistics. In

regard to these I will call your attention to a branch of the Social

Question. First of all, look at the monthly map for the current month

and the one for the month before the Palestine Discovery."

She handed two outline maps of Great Britain and Ireland to her sister.

The maps were shaded in crimson in different localities, the colour

being either light, medium, or dark. Innumerable figures were dotted

over them, referring to comprehensive marginal notes. Above each map was

printed:

SERIES D.--CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN

And the month and year were written in below in violet ink.

Mrs. Armstrong held the two maps, which were mounted on stiff card, and

glanced from one to the other. Suddenly her face flushed, her eyes

became full of incredulous horror, and she stared at her sister. "What

is this, Catherine?" she said in a high, agitated voice. "Surely there

is some mistake? This is terrible!"

"Terrible, indeed," Miss Paull answered. "During the last month, in

Wales, criminal assaults have increased _two hundred per cent_. In

England scarcely less. In Ireland, with the exception of Ulster, the

increase has been only eight per cent. I am comparing the map before the

discovery with that of the present month. Crimes of ordinary violence,

wife-beating and such like, have increased fifty per cent., on an

average, all over the United Kingdom. We have, of course, all the

convictions, sentences, and so forth. The local agents supply them to

the British Protection Society, they tabulate them and send them here,

and then the maps are made in this office ready for the annual report."

"But," said Mrs. Armstrong with a shocked, pale face, "is it _certain_

that this is a case of cause and effect?"

"Absolutely certain, Charlotte. Here I have over a thousand letters from

men and women interested in the work in all the great towns. They are in

answer to direct queries on the subject. In order that there could be no

possibility of any sectarian bias, the form has been sent to leading

citizens, of all denominations and creeds, who are interested in the

work. I will show you two letters at random."

She picked out two of the printed forms which had been sent out and

returned filled in, and gave them to Mrs. Armstrong. One ran:

"_Kindly state what, in your opinion, is the cause of the abnormal

increase of crimes against women in Great Britain during the past

month, as shown by the annexed map_.

"NAME. Rev. William Carr,

"Vicar of St. Saviour's,

"Birmingtown.

"The recent 'discovery' in Palestine, which appears to do away with

the Resurrection of Christ, is in my opinion entirely responsible

for the increase of crime mentioned above. Now that the Incarnation

is on all hands said to be a myth, the greatest restraint upon

human passion is removed. In my district I have found that the

moment men give up Christ and believe in this 'discovery,' the

moment that the Virgin birth and the manifestation to the Magdalen

are dismissed as untrue, women's claim to consideration, and

reverence for women's chastity, in the eyes of these men disappear.

"WILLIAM CARR."

Mrs. Armstrong said nothing whatever, but turned to the other form. In

this case the name was that of a Manchester alderman, obviously a

Jew--Moses Goldstein, of Goldstein & Hildesheimer, chemical bleachers.

In a flowing business hand the following remarks were written:

"Regrettable increase of crime due in my opinion to sudden wave of

disbelief in Christian doctrines. Have questioned men in my own

works on the subject. Record this as fact without pretending to

understand it. Crimes of violence on increase among Jewish workmen

also. Probably sympathetic reaction against morality, though as a

strict Jew myself find this doubly distressing.

"MOSES GOLDSTEIN."

"The famous philanthropist," murmured Mrs. Armstrong.

The lady seemed dazed. Her usual calm volubility seemed to have deserted

her.

"This is a terrible blow," said Miss Paull, sadly, "and day by day

things are getting worse as figures come in. It seems as if all our work

has been in vain. Men seem to be relapsing into the state of the

barbaric heathen world. But there is much more yet. I will read you an

extract from Mrs. Mary P. Corbin's letter from Chicago. You will

remember that she is the organising secretary of the United States

branch of the League."

She took up a bundle of closely typewritten sheets.

"'The Friend to Poor Girls' Society' in this city reports a most

painful state of things. The work has suddenly fallen to pieces and

become totally disorganised. Many of the girls have left the home

and returned to lives of prostitution--there seems to be no

restraining influence left. In a few cases girls have returned,

after two or three weeks of sin, mere wrecks of their former

selves. A---- S---- was a well-known girl on the streets when she

was converted and brought to the home. Five weeks ago she went

away, announcing her intention of resuming her former life. She has

just returned in a dying condition from brutal ill-usage. She says

that her former experience was nothing to what she has lately

endured. Her words are terribly significant: '_I went back as I

thought it was no use being good any more now that there isn't any

Jesus. I thought I'd have a good old time. But it's not as it was.

Hell's broke loose in the streets. The men are a million times

worse than they were. It's hell now._'

"Another awful blow has been struck at the purity work. The state

of the lower parts of Chicago and New York City has become so bad

that even the municipal authorities have become seriously alarmed.

Unmentionable orgies take place in public. Accordingly a bill is to

be rushed through Congress licensing so many houses of ill-fame in

each city ward, according to the Continental system."

She laid down the letter. "There is no need to read more than extracts,"

she said. "The letter is full of horrors. I may mention that the law

against polygamy in the Mormon State of Utah is on the point of being

repealed, and there can be no doubt that things will soon be as bad as

ever there. Here is a letter from the Bishop of Toomarbin, who is at

present in Melbourne, Australia. A Bill is preparing in the House of

Legislature to make the divorce laws for men as easy and simple as

possible, while women's privileges are to be greatly curtailed in this

direction. In Rhodesia the mine-captains are beginning to flog native

women quite unchecked by the local magistrates. English magistrates----"

"Stop, dear," said Mrs. Armstrong, with a sudden gesture almost of fear.

There was a craven, hunted look in the eyes of this well-known woman.

Her face was blanched with pain. She sat huddled up in her chair. All

the stately confidence was gone. That proud bearing of equality, and

more than equality, with men, which was so noticeable a characteristic

of her port and manner, had vanished.

The white hand which lifted a cup of scalding tea to her lips trembled

like a leaf.

The sisters sat together in silence. They sat there, names famous in the

world for courage, ability, resource. To these two, perhaps more than to

any others in England, had been given the power of building up the great

edifice of women's enlightened position at the present day.

And now?

In a moment all was changed. The brute in man was awake, unchained, and

loose. The fires of cruelty and lust were lit, they heard the roaring of

the fires like the roaring of wolves that "devour apace and nothing

said."

Mrs. Armstrong was terribly affected. Her keen intelligence told her at

once of coming horrors of which these were but the earliest signs.

The roaring of a great fire, louder and more menacing, nearer ...

nearer.

Christ had gone from the world never to return--Christ Whom the proud,

wishful, worldly woman had not believed in.... They were flogging girls,

selling girls ... the fires grew greater and greater ... nearer!

MARY, PITY WOMEN!

CHAPTER II

CYRIL HANDS REDUX

For the first two weeks after Hands's return he was utterly bewildered

by the rush of events in which he must take part and had little or no

time for thought.

His days were filled by official conferences with his chiefs at the

Exploring Society, from which important but by no means wealthy body he

had suddenly attained more than financial security.

Meeting succeeded meeting. Hands was in constant communication with the

heads of the Church, Government, and Society. Interviewers from all the

important papers shadowed him everywhere. Despite his protests, for he

was a quiet and retiring man, photographers fought for him, and his

long, somewhat melancholy face and pointed fair beard stared at him

everywhere.

He had to read papers at learned societies, and afterwards women came

and carried him off to evening parties without possibility of escape.

The Unitarians of England started a monster subscription for him, a

subscription which grew so fast that the less sober papers began to

estimate it day by day and to point out that the fortunate discoverer

would be a rich man for life.

Everywhere he was flattered, caressed, and made much of. In fact, he

underwent what to some natures is the grimmest torture of a humane

age--he became the MAN OF THE HOUR. Even by Churchmen and others most

interested in denying the truth of the discovery, Hands was treated with

consideration and deference. His own _bona fides_ in the matter was

indubitable, his long and notable record forbade suspicion.

Of Gortre Hands saw but little. Their greeting had been cordial, but

there was some natural restraint, one fearing the attitude of the other.

Gortre, no less than Hands, was much away from the chambers, and the

pair had few confidences. Hands felt, naturally enough under the

circumstances, that he would have been more comfortable with Spence. He

was surprised to find him absent, but all he was able to glean was that

the journalist had suddenly left for the Continent upon a special

mission. Hands supposed that Continental feeling was to be thoroughly

tested, and that the work had fallen to Spence.

Meanwhile the invitations flowed in. The old staircase of the inn was

besieged with callers. In order to escape them, Hands was forced to

spend much time in the chambers on the other side of the landing, which

belonged to a young barrister, Kennedy by name, who was able to put a

spare sitting-room at his disposal. This gentleman, briefless and happy,

was somewhat of the Dick Swiveller type, and it gave him intense

pleasure to reconnoitre the opposite "oak" through the slit of his

letter-box, and to report and speculate upon those who stood knocking

for admission.

How he loathed it all!

The shock and surprise of it was not one of the least distressing

features.

Far away in the ancient Eastern city he had indeed realised the

momentous nature of the strange and awful things he had found. But of

the consequences to himself he had thought nothing, and of the effects

on the world he had not had time to think.

Hands had never wished to be celebrated. His temperament was poetic in

essence, retiring in action. He longed to be back under the eye of the

sun, to move among the memorials of the past with his Arab boys, to lie

upon the beach of the Dead Sea when no airs stirred, and, suddenly, to

hear a vast, mysterious breaker, coming from nowhere, with no visible

cause, like some great beast crashing through the jungle.

And he had exchanged all this for lunches at institutions, for hot rooms

full of flowers and fools of women who said, "Oh, _do_ tell me all about

your delightful discovery," smiling through their paint while the

world's heart was breaking. And there was worse to come. At no distant

date he would have to stand upon the platform at the Albert Hall, and

Mr. Constantine Schuabe, M.P., Mrs. Hubert Armstrong, the writing

woman--the whole crowd of uncongenial people--would hand him a cheque

for some preposterous sum of money which he did not in the least want.

There would be speeches----

He was not made for this life.

His own convictions of Christianity had never been thoroughly formulated

or marked out in his brain. All that was mystical in the great history

of Christ had always attracted him. He took an æsthetic pleasure in the

beautiful story. To him more than to most men it had become a vivid

_panoramic_ vision. The background and accessories had been part of his

daily life for years. It was as the figure of King Arthur and his old

knights might be to some loving student of Malory.

And although his life was pure, his actions gentle and blameless, it had

always been thus to him--a lovely and poetic picture and no more. He

had never made a personal application of it to himself. His heart had

never been touched, and he had never heard the Divine Voice calling to

him.

At the end of a fortnight Hands found that he could stand the strain no

longer. His nerves were failing him; there was a constant babble of

meaningless voices in his ear which took all the zest and savour from

life. His doctor told him quite unmistakably that he was doing too much,

that he was not inured to this gaiety, and that he must go away to some

solitude by the sea and rest.

The advice not only coincided with his own wishes, but made them

possible. A good many engagements were cancelled, a paragraph appeared

in the newspapers to say that Mr. Hands's medical adviser had insisted

upon a thorough rest, and the man of the moment disappeared. Save only

Gortre and the secretary of the Exploring Society, no one knew of his

whereabouts.

In a week he was forgotten. Greater things began to animate

Society--harsh, terrible, ugly things. There was no time to think of

Hands, the instrument which had brought them about.

The doctor had recommended the remotest parts of Cornwall. Standing in

his comfortable room at Harley Street, he expatiated, with an

enthusiastic movement of his hand, upon the peace to be found in that

lost country of frowning rocks and bottle-green seas, where, so far is

it from the great centres of action, men still talk of "going into

England" as if it were an enterprise, an adventure.

Two days found him at a lonely fishing cove, rather than village,

lodging in the house of a coast-guard, not far from Saint Ives.

A few whitewashed houses ran down to the beach of the little natural

harbour where the boats were sheltered.

On the shores of the little "Porth," as it was called, the fishermen sat

about with sleepy, vacant eyes, waiting for the signal of watchmen on

the moor above--the shrill Cornish cry of "Ubba!" "Ubba!" which would

tell them the mackerel were in sight.

Behind the cove, running inland, were the vast, lonely moors which run

between the Atlantic and the Channel. It is always grey and sad upon

these rolling solitudes, sad and silent. The glory of summer gorse had

not yet clothed them with a fleeting warmth and hospitality. As far as

the eye could reach they stretched away with a forlorn immensity that

struck cold to Hands's heart. Peace was here indeed, but how austere!

quiet, but what a brooding and cruel silence!

Every now and again the roving eye, in its search for incident and

colour, was caught and arrested by the bleak engine-house of some

ancient deserted mine and the gaunt chimney which pointed like a leaden

finger to the stormy skies above. Great humming winds swept over the

moor, driving flocks of Titanic clouds, an Olympian army in rout, before

their fierce breath.

Here, day by day, Hands took his solitary walk, or sometimes he would

sit sheltered in a hollow of the jagged volcanic rocks which set round

about the cove a barrier of jagged teeth. Down below him a hard, green

sea boiled and seethed in an agony of fierce unrest. The black

cormorants in the middle distance dived for their cold prey. The

sea-birds were tossed on the currents of the wild air, calling to each

other with forlorn, melancholy voices. This remote Western world

resounded with the powerful voices of the waves; night and day the gongs

of Neptune's anger were sounding.

In the afternoon a weary postman tramped over the moor. He brought the

London newspapers of the day before, and Hands read them with a strange

subjective sensation of spectatorship.

So far away was he from the world that by a paradox of psychology he

viewed its turmoil with a clearer eye. As poetry is emotion remembered

in tranquillity, as a painter often prefers to paint a great canvas from

studies and memory--quiet in his studio--rather than from the actual but

too kinetic scene, so Hands as he read the news-sheets felt and lived

the story they had to tell far more acutely than in London.

He had more time to think about what he read. It was in this lost corner

of the world that the chill began to creep over him.

The furious sounds of Nature clamoured in his ears, assaulting them like

strongholds; these were the objective sounds.

But as his subjective brain grew clear the words his eyes conveyed to it

filled it with a more awful reverberation.

The awful weight grew. He began to realise with terrible distinctness

_the consequences_ of his discovery. They stunned him. A carved

inscription, a crumbling tomb in half an acre of waste ground. He had

stumbled upon so much and little more. _He_, Cyril Hands, had found

this.

His straining eyes day by day turned to the columns of the papers.

CHAPTER III

ALL YE INHABITANTS OF THE WORLD, AND DWELLERS ON THE EARTH, SEE YE,

WHEN HE LIFTETH UP AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS.--ISAIAH XVIII: 3

Hands awoke to terrible realisation.

The telegrams in the newspapers provided him with a bird's-eye view, an

epitomised summary of a world in tumult.

Out of a wealth of detail, culled from innumerable telegrams and

articles, certain facts stood out clearly.

In the Balkan States, always in unrest, a crisis, graver than ever

before, suddenly came about. The situation _flared_ up like a petrol

explosion.

A great revival of Mohammedan enthusiasm had begun to spread from

Jerusalem as soon as Europe had more or less definitely accepted the

discovery made by Cyril Hands and confirmed by the international

committee.

It was no longer possible to hold the troops of the Sultan in check. It

was openly said by the correspondents that _instructions_ had been sent

from Yildiz Kiosk to the provincial Valis in both European and Asiatic

Turkey that Christians were to be exterminated, swept for ever from the

world.

Telegrams of dire importance filled the columns of the papers.

Hands would read in one _Daily Wire_:

"PARIS (_From our own Correspondent_).--The Prince of Bulgaria has

indefinitely postponed his departure, and remains at the Hotel Ritz

for the present. It is impossible for him to progress beyond

Vienna. Dr. Daneff, the Bulgarian Premier, has arrived here. In the

course of an interview with a representative of _Le Matin_ he has

stated the only hope of saving the Christians remaining in the

Balkan States lies in the intervention of Russia. 'The situation,'

Dr. Daneff is reported to have said, 'has assumed the appearance of

a religious war. The followers of Islam are drunk with triumph and

hatred of the "Nazarenes." The recent discoveries in Jerusalem

simply mean a licence to sweep Christians out of existence. The

exulting cries of "Ashahadu, lá ílaha ill Allah" have already

sounded the death-knell of our ancient faith in Bulgaria.' M.

Daneff was extremely affected during the interview, and states that

Prince Ferdinand is unable to leave his room."

Never before in the history of Eastern Europe had the future appeared so

gloomy or the present been so replete with horror.

The massacres of bygone years were as nothing to those which were daily

flashed over the wires to startle and appal a world which was still

Christian, at least in name.

An extract from a leading article in the _Daily Wire_ shows that the

underlying reason and cause was thoroughly appreciated and understood in

England no less than abroad.

"In this labyrinth of myth and murder," the article said, "a

sudden and spontaneous outburst of hatred, of Mussulman hatred for

the Christian, has now--owing to the overthrow of the chief

accepted doctrine of the Christian faith--become a deliberate

measure of extermination adopted by a barbarous Government as the

simplest solution of the problem in the Near East. The stupendous

fact which has lately burst upon the world has had effects which,

while they might have been anticipated in some degree, have already

passed far beyond the bounds of the most confirmed political

pessimist's dream.

"From the _fact_ of the Jerusalem discovery, ambitious agitators

have hurried to draw their profit. Politicians have not hesitated

to provoke a series of massacres, and by playing upon the worst

forms of Mussulman fanaticism to organise that ghastliest system of

crime upon the largest and most comprehensive scale. The whole

thing is, moreover, immensely complicated by the utter

unscrupulousness of that association universally notorious as the

Macedonian Committee. These people, who may be described as a

company of aspirants to the crown of immortality earned by other

people's martyrdom, have themselves assisted in the work of

lighting the fires of Turkish passion, and they have helped to

provoke atrocities which will enable them to pose before the eyes

of the civilised world as the interesting victims of Moslem

ferocity."

Thus Hands read in his rock cave above the boiling winter sea. Thus and

much more, as the cloud grew darker and darker over Eastern Europe,

darker and darker day by day.

In a week it became plain to the world that Bulgarians, Servians, and

Armenians alike had collapsed utterly before the insolent exultation of

the Turks. The spirit of resistance and enthusiasm had gone. The

ignorant and tortured peoples had no answer for those who flung foul

insults at the Cross.

As reflected in the newspapers, the public mind in England was becoming

seriously alarmed at these horrible and daily bulletins, but neither

Parliament nor people were as yet ready with a suggested course of

action. The forces of disintegration had been at work; it seemed no

longer possible to secure a great _body_ of opinion as in the old times.

And Englishmen were troubled with grave domestic problems also. More

especially the great increase of the worst forms of crime attracted

universal attention and dismay.

Then news came which shook the whole country to its depths. Men began to

look into each other's eyes and ask what these things might mean.

Hands read:

"Our special correspondent in Bombay telegraphs disquieting news

from India. The native regiments in Bengal are becoming difficult

to handle. The officers of the staff corps are making special

reports to headquarters. Three native officers of the 100th Bengal

Lancers have been placed under arrest, though no particulars as to

the exact reason for this step have been allowed to transpire."

This first guarded intimation of serious disaffection in India was

followed, two days afterwards, by longer and far more serious reports.

The Indian mail arrived with copies of _The Madras Mail_ and _The Times

of India_, which disclosed much more than had hitherto come over the

cables.

Long extracts were printed from these journals in the English dailies.

Epitomised, Hands learned the following facts. From a mass of detail a

few lurid facts remained fixed in his brain.

The well-meant but frequently unsuccessful mission efforts in Southern

India were brought to a complete and utter stand-still.

By that thought-willed system of communication and the almost flame-like

mouth-to-mouth carnage of news which is so inexplicable to Western

minds, who can only understand the workings of the electric telegraph,

the whole of India seemed to be throbbing with the news of the downfall

of Christianity, and this within a fortnight of the publication of the

European report.

From Cashmere to Travancore the millions whispered the news to each

other with fierce if secret exultation.

The higher Hinduism, the key to the native character in India, the wall

of caste, rose up grim and forbidding. The passionate earnestness of the

missionaries was met by questions they could not answer. In a few days

the work of years seemed utterly undone.

Europeans began to be insulted in the Punjaub as they had never been

since the days before the Mutiny. English officers and civilians also

began to send their wives home. The great P. and O. boats were

inconveniently crowded.

In Afghanistan there was a great uneasiness. The Emir had received two

Russian officers. Russian troops were massing on the north-west

frontier. Fanatics began to appear in the Hill provinces, claiming

divine missions. People began to remember that every fourth man, woman,

and child in the whole human race is a Buddhist. Asia began to feel a

great thrill of excitement permeating it through and through. There were

rumours of a new incarnation of Buddha, who would lead his followers to

the conquest of the West.

Troops from all over India began to concentrate near the Sri Ulang Pass

in the Hindu-Kush.

Simultaneously with these ominous rumours of war came an extraordinary

outburst of Christian fanaticism in Russia. The peasantry burst into a

flame of anger against England. The priests of the Greek Church not only

refused to believe in the Palestine discovery, but they refused to

ignore it, as the Roman Catholics of the world were endeavouring to do.

They began to preach war against Great Britain for its infidelity, and

the political Powers seized the opportunity to use religious fanaticism

for their own ends.

All these events happened with appalling _swiftness_.

In the remote Cornish village Hands moved as in a dream. His eyes saw

nothing of his surroundings, his face was pallid under the brown of his

skin. Sometimes, as he sat alone on the moors or by the sea, he laughed

loudly. Once a passing coast-guard heard him. The man told of it among

the fishermen, and they regarded their silent visitor with something of

awe, with the Celtic compassion for those mentally afflicted.

On the first Sunday of his arrival Hands heard the deep singing of hymns

coming from the little white chapel on the cliff. He entered in time for

the sermon, which was preached by a minister who had walked over from

Penzance.

Here all the turmoil of the world beyond was ignored. It seemed as

though nothing had ever been heard of the thing that was shaking the

world. The pastor preached and prayed, the men and women answered with

deep, groaning "Amens." It all mattered nothing to them. They heeded it

no more than the wailing wind in the cove. The voice of Christ was not

stilled in the hearts of this little congregation of the Faithful.

This chilled the recluse. He could find no meaning or comfort in it.

That evening he heard the daughter of the coast-guard with whom he

lodged singing. It was a wild night, and Hands was sitting by the fire

in his little sitting-room. Outside the wind and rain and waves were

shouting furiously in the dark.

The girl was playing a few simple chords on the harmonium and singing to

them.

"For ever with the Lord."

An untuneful voice, louder than need be, but with what conviction!

Hands tried to fix his attention on the newspaper which he held.

He read that in Rhodesia the mine capitalists were moving for slavery

pure and simple. It was proposed openly that slavery should be the

penalty for law-breaking for natives. This was the only way, it

asserted, by which the labour problem in South Africa could be solved.

"Life from the dead is in that word,

'Tis immortality."

It seemed that there was small opposition to this proposal. It would be

the best thing for the Kaffir, perhaps, this wise and kindly discipline.

So the proposal was wrapped up.

"And nightly pitch my moving tent

A day's march nearer home."

Hands saw that, quite suddenly, the _old horror of slavery had

disappeared_.

This, too, was coming, then? This old horror which Christians had

banished from the world?

"So when my latest breath

Shall rend the veil in twain."

Hands started. His thoughts came back to the house in which he sat. The

girl's voice touched him immeasurably. He heard it clearly in a lull of

the storm. Then another tremendous gust of wind drowned it.

Two great tears rolled down his cheeks.

It was midnight, and all the people in the house were long since asleep,

when Hands picked up the last of his newspapers.

It was Saturday's edition of the _London Daily Mercury_, the powerful

rival of the _Wire_. A woman who had been to Penzance market had brought

it home for him, otherwise he would have had to wait for it until the

Monday morning.

He gazed wearily round the homely room.

Weariness, that was what lay heavy over mind and body--an utter

weariness.

The firelight played upon the crude pictures, the simple ornaments, the

ship worked in worsted when the coast-guard was a boy in the Navy, the

shells from a Pacific island, a model gun under a glass shade. But his

thoughts were not prisoned by these humble walls and the humble room in

which he sat. He heard the groaning of the peoples of the world, the

tramp of armies, the bitter cry of souls from whom hope had been plucked

for ever.

He remembered the fair morning in Jerusalem when, with the earliest

light of dawn, he had gone to work with his Arab boys before the heat of

the day.

From the Mosque of Omar he had heard the sonorous chant of the muezzin.

"THE NIGHT HAS GONE WITH THE DARKNESS, AND THE DAY APPROACHES WITH

LIGHT AND BRIGHTNESS!

"PRAISE GOD FOR SECURING HIS FAVOUR AND KINDNESS!

"GOD IS MOST GREAT! GOD IS MOST GREAT! I TESTIFY THAT THERE IS NO

GOD BUT GOD!

"I TESTIFY THAT MOHAMMED IS THE APOSTLE OF GOD!

"COME TO PRAYER!

"COME TO SECURITY!

"PRAYER IS BETTER THAN SLEEP!

"GOD IS MOST GREAT!

"THERE IS NO GOD BUT GOD!

"ARISE, MAKE MORNING, AND TO GOD BE THE PRAISE!"

He had heard the magnificent chant as he passed by, almost kneeling with

his Arabs. So short a time ago! Hardly three months--he had kept no

count of time lately, but it could hardly be four months.

How utterly unconscious he had been on that radiant morning outside the

Damascus Gate! He had seen the men at work, and was sitting under his

sun-tent writing on his pad; he was just lighting a cigarette, he

remembered, when Ionides, the foreman, had come running up to him, his

shrewd, brown face wrinkled with excitement.

And now, even as he sat there on that stormy midnight, far from the

world, even now the whole globe was echoing and reverberating with his

discovery. He had opened the little rock chambers, and it seemed that

the blows of the picks had set free a troop of ruinous spirits, who were

devastating mankind.

Pandora's box--that legend fitted what he had done, but with a deadly

difference.

He could not find that Hope remained. It would have been better a

thousand times if the hot Eastern sun had struck him down that distant

morning on his way through the city.

The awful weight, the initial responsibility rested with _him_.

_He_ alone had been the means by which the world was being shaken with

horrors--horrors growing daily, and that seemed as if the end would be

unutterable night.

How the wind shrieked and wailed!

=Egô Iôsêph ho apo Arimatheias.=

The words were written in fire on his mind!

The wind was shrieking louder and louder.

The Atlantic boomed in one continuous burst of sound.

He looked once more at the leading article in the paper.

It was that article which was long afterwards remembered as the "Simple

Statement" article.

The writer had spoken the thought that was by this time trembling for

utterance on the lips and in the brains of all Englishmen--the thought

which had never been so squarely faced, so frankly stated before.

Here and there passages started out more vividly than the rest. The

words seemed to start out and stab him.

* * * * *

"--So much for INDIA, where, sprung from the same Cause, the

indications are impossible to mistake.

"Let us now turn to the ANGLO-SAXON sprung communities other than

these Islands.

"In AMERICA we find a wave of lawlessness and fierce riot passing

over the country, such as it has never known before.

"The IRISHMEN and ITALIANS, who throng the congested quarters of

the great cities, are robbing and murdering PROTESTANTS and JEWS.

The UNITED STATES Legislature is paralysed between the necessity of

keeping order and the impossibility of resolution in the face of

this tremendous _bouleversement_ of belief.

"From AUSTRALIA the foremost prelate of the great country writes of

the utter overthrow of a communal moral sense, and concludes his

communication with the following pathetic words:

"_'Everywhere,'_ he says, _'I see morals, no less than the religion

which inculcates them, falling into neglect, set aside in a spirit

of despair by fathers and mothers, treated with contempt by youths

and maidens, spat upon and cursed by a degraded populace, assailed

with eager sarcasm by the polite and cultured.'_

* * * * *

"The terrible seriousness of the situation need hardly be further

insisted on here. Its reality cannot be more vividly indicated than

by the statement of a single fact.

"CONSOLS ARE DOWN TO SIXTY-FIVE

* * * * *

"--and therefore we demand, in the name of humanity, a far more

comprehensive and representative searching into the facts of the

alleged 'discovery' at JERUSALEM. Society is falling to pieces as we

write.

"Who will deny the reason?

"Already, after a few short weeks, we are learning that the world

cannot go on without Christianity. That is the Truth which the world

is forced to realise. And no essay in sociology, no special pleading

on the part of Scientists or Historians, can shake our conviction

that a creed which, when sudden doubts are thrown upon it, can be

the means of destroying the essential fabric of human society, is

not the true and unassailable creed of mankind.

* * * * *

"We foresee an immediate reaction. The consequences of the wave of

antichristian belief are now, and will be, so devastating, that sane

men will find in Disbelief and its consequences a glorious

recrudescence and assurance of Faith."

* * * * *

Hands stared into the dying fire.

A solemn passage from John Bright's great speech on the Crimean War came

into his mind. The plangent power and deep earnestness of the words were

even more applicable now than then.

_"The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land: you may

almost hear the beating of his wings. There is no one, as when the

first-born were slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel and

two side-posts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on."_

So they were asking for another commission! Well, they might try that as

a forlorn hope, but _he knew_ that his discovery was real. Could _he_ be

mistaken possibly? Could that congress of the learned be all mistaken

and imposed upon? It was not possible. It could not be. Would that it

_were_ possible.

There was no hope, despite the newspapers. For centuries the world had

been living in a fool's paradise. He had destroyed it. It would be a

hundred years before the echoes of his deed had died away.

But the terrible weight of the world's burden was too heavy for him to

bear. He knew that. Not for much longer could he endure it.

The life seemed oozing out of him, pressed out by a weight--the

sensation was physical.

He wished it was all over. He had no hope for the future, and no fear.

The weight was too heavy. The outside dark came through the walls, and

began to close in on him. His heart beat loudly. It seemed to rise up in

his throat and choke him.

The pressure grew each moment; mountains were being piled upon him,

heavier, more heavy.

The wind was but a distant murmur now, but the weight was crushing him.

Only a few more moments and his heart would burst. _At last!_

The dark thing huddled on the hearth-rug, which the girl found when she

came down in the morning, was the scholar's body.

The newspaper he had been reading lay upon his chest.

CHAPTER IV

A LUNCHEON PARTY

Constantine Schuabe's great room at the Hotel Cecil had been entirely

refurnished and arranged for the winter months.

The fur of great Arctic beasts lay upon the heavy Teheran carpets, which

had replaced the summer matting--furs of enormous value. The dark red

curtains which hung by windows and over doors were worked with threads

of dull gold.

All the chairs were more massive in material and upholstered warmly in

soft leather; the logs in the fireplace crackled with white flame,

amethyst in the glowing cavern beneath.

However the winter winds might sweep over the Thames below or the rain

splash and welter on the Embankment, no sound or sign of the turmoil

could reach or trouble the people who moved in the fragrant warmth and

comfort of this room.

For his own part Schuabe never gave any attention to the _mise-en-scène_

by which he was surrounded, here or elsewhere. The head of a famous

Oxford Street firm was told to call with his artists and undermen; he

was given to understand that the best that could be done was to be done,

and the matter was left entirely to him.

In this there was nothing of the _parvenu_ or of an ignorance of art, as

far as Schuabe was concerned. He was a man of catholic and cultured

taste. But experience had taught him that his furnishing firm were

trained to be catholic and cultured also, that an artist would see to it

that no jarring notes appeared. And since he knew this, Schuabe

infinitely preferred not to be bothered with details. In absolute

contrast to Llwellyn, his mind was always busy with abstractions, with

thought and forms of thought, things that cannot be handled or seen.

They were the real things for him always.

The millionaire sat alone by the glowing fire. He was wearing a long

gown of camel's hair, dyed crimson, confined round the waist by a

crimson cord. In this easy garment and a pair of morocco slippers

without heels, he looked singularly Eastern. The whole face and figure

suggested that--sinister, lonely, and splendid.

The morning papers were resting on a chair by his side. He was reading

one of them.

It announced the death from heart disease of Mr. Cyril Hands while

taking a few days' rest in a remote village of Cornwall. Not a shadow of

regret passed over the regular, impassive face. The eyes remained in

fixed thought. He was logically going over the bearings of this event in

his mind. How could it affect _him_? _Would_ it affect him one way or

the other?

He paced the long room slowly. On the whole the incident seemed without

meaning for him. If it meant anything at all it meant that his position

was stronger than ever. The voice of the discoverer was now for ever

silent. His testimony, his reluctant but convinced opinion, was upon

record. Nothing could alter that. Hands might perhaps have had doubts in

the future. He might have examined more keenly into the _way in which he

came to examine the ground_ where the new tomb was hidden. Yes, this was

better. That danger, remote as it had been, was over.

As his eyes wandered over the rest of the news columns they became more

alert, speculative, and anxious. The world was in a tumult, which grew

louder and louder every hour. Thrones were rocking, dynasties trembling.

He sank down in his chair with a sigh, passing his hand wearily over his

face. Who could have foreseen this? It was beyond belief. He gazed at

the havoc and ruin in terrified surprise, as a child might who had lit a

little fire of straw, which had grown and devoured a great city.

It was in this very room--just over there in the centre--that he had

bought the brain and soul of the archæologist.

The big man had stood exactly on that spot, blanched and trembling. His

miserable notes of hand and promises to pay had flamed up in this fire.

And now? India was slipping swiftly away; a bloody civil war was brewing

in America; Central Europe was a smouldering torch; the whips of Africa

were cracking in the ears of Englishmen; the fortunes of thousands were

melting away like ice in the sun. In London gentlemen were going from

their clubs to their houses at night carrying pistols and sword-sticks.

North of Holborn, south of the Thames, no woman was safe after dark had

fallen.

He saw his face in an oval silver glass. It fascinated him as it had

never done before. He gripped the leather back of a chair and stared

fiercely, hungrily, at the image. It was _this_, this man he was

looking at, some stranger it seemed, who had done all this. He

laughed--a dreadful, mirthless, hollow laugh. This mass of phosphates,

carbon, and water, this moving, talking thing in a scarlet gown, was the

pivot on which the world was turning!

His brain became darkened for a time, lost in an awful wonder. He could

not realise or understand.

And no one knew save his partner and instrument. _No one knew!_

The secret seemed to be bursting and straining within him like some

live, terrible creature that longed to rush into light. For weeks the

haunting thought had grown and harassed him. It rang like bells in his

memory. If only he could share his own dark knowledge. He wanted to take

some calm, pale woman, to hold her tight and tell her all that he had

done, to whisper it into her ears and watch the mask of flesh change and

shrink, to see his words carve deep furrows in it, sear the eyes, burn

the colour from the lips. He saw his own face was working with the mad

violence of his imaginings.

He _wrenched_ his brain back into normal grooves, as an engineer pulls

over a lever. He was half-conscious of the simile as he did so.

Turning away from the mirror, he shuddered as a man who has escaped from

a sudden danger.

_That_ above all things was fatal. His luxuriant Eastern imagination had

been checked and kept in subjection all his life; the force of his

intellect had tamed and starved it. He knew, none better, the end, the

extinction of the brain that has got beyond control. No, come what may,

he must watch himself cunningly that he did not succumb. A tiny speck in

the brain, and then good-bye to thought and life for ever. He was a

visitor of the Lancashire Asylum--had been so once at least--and he had

seen the soulless lumps of flesh the doctors called "patients." ... "_I

am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul_," he repeated

to himself, and even as he did so, his other self sneered at the

weakness which must comfort itself with a poet's rhyme and cling to an

apothegm for readjustment.

He tried to shut out the world's alarm from his mental eyes and ears.

He went back to the scenes of his first triumph. They had been sweet

indeed.

Yes! worth all the price he had paid and might be called upon to pay.

All over England his life's thought, his constant programme had been

gloriously vindicated. They had hailed him as the prophet of Truth at

first--a prophet who had cried in the wilderness for years, and who had

at last come into his own.

The voices of great men and vast multitudes had come to him as incense.

He was to be the leader of the new religion of common sense. Why had

they doubted him before, led away by the old superstitions?

Men who had hated and feared him in the old days, had spoken against him

and his doctrines as if both were abhorred and unclean, were his friends

and servants now. Christians had humbled themselves to the

representative of the new power. Bishops had consulted him as to the

saving of the Church, and its reconstruction upon "newer, broader, more

illuminated lines." They had come to him with fear--anxious, eager to

confess the errors of the past, swift to flatter and suggest that, with

his help, the fabric and political power of the Church might yet stand.

He was shown, with furtive eyes and hesitating lips, from which the

shame had not yet been cleansed, how desirable and necessary it was that

in the reconstruction of Christianity the Church should still have a

prominent and influential part.

He had been a colossus among them all. But--and he thought of it with

anger and the old amazement--all this had been _at first_, when the

discovery had flashed over a startled world. While the thing was new it

had been a great question, truly the greatest of all, but it had been

one which affected men's minds and not their bodies. That is speaking of

the world at large.

As has already been pointed out, only _religious_ people--a vast host,

but small beside the mass of Englishmen--were disturbed seriously by

what had happened. The price of bread remained the same; beef was no

dearer.

During these first weeks Schuabe had been all-powerful. He and his

friends had lived in a constant and stupendous triumph.

But now--and in his frightful egoism he frowned at the thick black

head-lines in the newspapers--the whole attitude of every one was

changed. There was a reflex action, and in the noise it made Schuabe was

forgotten.

Men had more to think of now. There was no time to congratulate the man

who had been so splendidly right.

_Consols were at 65!_

Bread was rising each week. War was imminent. On all sides great

mercantile houses were crashing. Each fall meant a thousand minor

catastrophes all over the country.

The antichristians had no time to jeer at the Faithful; they must work

and strain to save their own fortunes from the wreck.

The mob, who were swiftly bereft of the luxuries which kept them in

good-humour, were turning on the antichristian party now. In their

blind, selfish unreason they cried them down, saying that they were

responsible for the misery and terror that lay over the world.

With an absolute lack of logic, the churches were crowded again. The

most irreligious cried for the good old times. Those who had most

coarsely exulted over the broken Cross now bewailed it as the most awful

of calamities.

Christianity was daily being terribly avenged through the pockets and

stomachs of the crowd!

It was bizarre beyond thinking, sordid in its immensity, vulgar in its

mighty soulless greed, but TRUE, REAL, a FEARFUL FACT.

A stupendous _confusion_.

Two great currents had met in a maelstrom. The din of the disturbance

beat upon the world's ear with sickening clamour.

Louder and louder, day by day.

And the man who had done all this, the brain which had called up these

legions from hell, which had loosed these fiery sorrows on mankind, was

in a rich room in a luxurious hotel, alone there. Again the shock and

marvel took hold of the man and shook him like a reed.

There was a round table, covered with a gleaming white cloth, by the

fire. The kidneys in the silver dish were cold, the grease had

congealed. The silent servants had brought up a breakfast to him. He had

watched their clever, automatic movements. Did they know _whom_ they

were attending on, what would happen--?

His thoughts flashed hither and thither, now surveying a world in

torture, now weaving a trivial and whimsical romance about a waiter. The

frightful activity of his brain, inflamed by thoughts beyond the power

of even that wonderful machine, began to have a consuming physical

effect.

He felt the grey matter bubbling. Agonising pains shot from temple to

temple, little knives seemed hacking at the back of his eyes. Once

again, in a wave of unutterable terror, the fear of madness submerged

him.

On this second occasion he was unable to recall his composure by any

effort which came from within himself. He stumbled into his adjoining

dressing-room and selected a bottle from a shelf. It was bromide of

potassium, which he had been taking of late to deaden the clamour and

vibration of his nerves.

In half an hour the drug had calmed him. His face was very pale, but set

and rigid. The storm was over. He felt shattered by its violence, but in

an artificial peace.

He took a cigarette.

As he was lighting it his valet entered and announced that Mr. Dawlish,

his man of business, was waiting in an anteroom.

He ordered that he should be shown in.

Mr. Dawlish was the junior partner of the well-known firm of city

solicitors, Burrington & Tuite. That was his official description. In

effect he was Schuabe's principal man of business. All his time was

taken up by the millionaire's affairs all over England.

He came in quickly--a tall, well-dressed man, hair thin on the forehead,

moustache carefully trained.

"You look very unwell, Mr. Schuabe," he said, with a keen glance. "Don't

let these affairs overwhelm you. Nothing is so dangerous as to let the

nerves go in times like these."

Schuabe started.

"How are things, Dawlish?" he said.

"Very shaky, very shaky, indeed. The shares of the Budapest Railway are

to be bought for a shilling. I am afraid your investments in that

concern are utterly lost. When the Bourses closed last night dealings in

Foreign Government Stock were at a stand-still. Turkish C and O bonds

are worthless."

Again the millionaire started. "You bring me a record of disaster," he

said.

"Baumann went yesterday," continued the level voice.

"My cousin," said Schuabe.

"The worst of it is that the situation is getting worse and worse. We

have, as you know, made enormous efforts. But all attempts you have made

to uphold your securities have only been throwing money away. The last

fortnight has been frightful. More than two hundred thousand pounds have

gone. In fact, an ordinary man would be ruined by the last month or two.

Your position is better because of the real property in the Manchester

mills."

"Trade has almost ceased."

"Close the mills down and wait. You cannot go on."

"If I do, ten thousand men will be let loose on the city with nothing

but the Union funds to fall back on."

"If you don't, you will be what Baumann is to-day--a bankrupt."

"I have eighty thousand cash on deposit at the Bank of England."

"And if you throw that away after the rest you will be done for. You

don't realise the situation. It _can't_ recover. War is inevitable.

India will go, I feel it. England is going to turn into a camp. Religion

is the pretext of war everywhere. Take your money from the Bank in cash

and lock it up in the Safe Deposit strong rooms. Keep that sum, earning

nothing, for emergencies, then wait for the other properties to recover.

It will be years perhaps, but you will win through in the end. The

freehold sites of the mills are alone worth almost anything. It is only

_paper_ millionaires that are easily ruined. You are a great property

owner. But you must walk very warily, even you. Who could have foreseen

all this? I see that fellow Hands is dead--couldn't stand the sight of

the mischief he'd done, I suppose. The fool! the eternal fool! why

couldn't he have kept his sham discovery to himself? Look at the

unutterable misery it has brought on the world."

"You yourself, Dawlish, are you suffering the common fate?"

"I? Certainly not! That is to say, I suffer of course, but not fatally.

All my investments are in buildings in safe quarters. I may have to

reduce rents for a year or two, but my houses will not be empty. And

they are my own."

"Fortunate man," said Schuabe; "but why _sham_ discovery?"

"Out of business hours," said the solicitor, with some stiffness and

hesitation, "I am a Roman Catholic, Mr. Schuabe. Good-morning. I will

send the transfer round for you to sign."

The cool, machine-like man went away. The millionaire knew that his

fortune was tottering, but it moved him little. He knew that his power

in the country was nearly over, had dwindled to nothing in the stir of

greater things around. Money was only useful as a means of power, and

with a sure prescience he saw that he would never regain his old

position.

The hour was over.

Whatever would be the outcome of these great affairs, the hour was past

and over.

The one glowing thought which burned within him, and seemed to be eating

out his life, was the awful knowledge that he and no other man had set

in motion this terrible machinery which was grinding up the civilised

world.

Day and night from that there was no relief.

His valet again entered and reminded his master that some people were

coming to lunch. He went away and began to dress with the man's help.

The guests were only two in number. One was Ommaney, the editor of the

_Daily Wire_, the other Mrs. Hubert Armstrong.

Both the lady and gentleman came in together at about two o'clock.

Mrs. Armstrong was much changed in appearance. Her face had lost its

serenity; her manner was quick and anxious; her voice strained.

The slim, quiet editor, on the other hand, seemed to be untouched by

worry. Quiet and inscrutable as ever, the only change in him, perhaps,

was a slight briskness, an aroma rather than an actual expression of

good humour and _bien-être_.

They sat down to the meal. Schuabe, in his dark grey frock-coat, the

careful _ensemble_ of his dress no less than the regular beauty of his

face--now smooth and calm--seemed to be beyond all mundane cares. Only

the lady was ill at ease.

The conversation at first was all of the actual news of the day, as it

had appeared in the morning's newspapers. Hands's death was discussed.

"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Armstrong, with a sigh; "it is sad to think of

his sudden ending. The burden was too much for him to bear. I can

understand it when I look round upon all that is happening; it is

terrible!"

"Surely you do not regret the discovery of the truth?" said Schuabe,

quickly.

"I am beginning to fear truth," said the lady. "The world, it seems, was

not ripe for it. In a hundred years, perhaps, our work would have paved

the way. But it is premature. Look at the chaos all around us. The

public has ceased to think or read. They are reading nothing. Three

publishers have put up the shutters during the week."

The journalist interrupted with a dry chuckle. "They are reading the

_Daily Wire_," he said; "the circulation is almost doubled." He sent a

congratulatory glance to Schuabe.

The millionaire's great holding in the paper was a secret known only to

a few. In the stress of greater affairs he had half forgotten it. A

swift feeling of relief crossed his brain as he realised what this meant

to his tottering fortunes.

"Poor Hands!" said the editor, "he was a nice fellow. Rather unpractical

and dreamy, but a nice fellow. Owing to him we had the greatest chance

that any paper has ever had in the history of journalism. We owe him a

great debt. The present popularity and influence of the paper has

dwarfed, positively dwarfed, all its rivals. I have given the poor

fellow three columns to-day; I wish I could do more."

"Do you not think, Mr. Ommaney," asked Mrs. Armstrong, "that in the

enormous publication of telegrams and political foreign news, the

glorious fact that the world has at last awakened to a knowledge of the

glorious truths of real religion is being swamped and forgotten? After

all, what will be the greatest thing in history a hundred years from

now? Will it not be the death of the old superstitions rather than a

mutiny in the East or a war with Russia? Will not the names of the

pioneers of truth remain more firmly fixed in the minds of mankind than

those of generals and chancellors?"

The editor made it quite plain that these were speculations with which

he had nothing whatever to do.

"It's dead, Mrs. Armstrong," he said brutally. "The religious aspect is

utterly dead, and wouldn't sell an extra copy of the paper. It would be

madness to touch it now. The public gaze is fixed on Kabul River and

St. Petersburg, Belgrade and Constantinople. They have almost forgotten

that Jerusalem exists. I sent out twelve special correspondents ten days

ago."

Mrs. Armstrong sighed deeply. It was true, bitterly true. She was no

longer of any importance in the public eye. No one asked her to lecture

now. The mass meetings were all over. Not a single copy of _John

Mulgrave_ had been sold for a month. How differently she had pictured it

all on that winter's morning at Sir Michael's; how brightly and

gloriously it had begun, and now how bitter the _dénouement_, how

utterly beyond foresight? What was this superstition, this Christianity

which in its death struggles could overthrow a world?

"_The decisive events of the world occur in the intellect._" Yes, but

how soon do they leave their parent and outstrip its poor control?

There was no need for women _now_. That was the bitterest thought of

all. The movement was over--done with. A private in the Guards was a

greater hero than the leader of an intellectual movement. What a

monstrous _bouleversement_ of everything!

Again the lady sighed deeply.

"No," she said again, "the world was not yet strong enough to bear the

truth. I have sold my Consols," she continued; "I have been advised to

do so. I was investing for my daughter when I am gone. Newspaper shares

are the things to buy now, I suppose! My brokers told me that I was

doing the wisest thing. They said that they could not recover for

years."

"The money market is a thing in which I have very little concern except

inasmuch as it affects large public issues," said the editor. "I leave

it all to my city editor and his staff--men in whom I have the greatest

possible trust. But I heard a curious piece of news last night. I don't

know what it portends; perhaps Mr. Schuabe can tell me; he knows all

about these things. Sir Michael Manichoe, the head of the Church

political party, you know has been buying Consols enormously. Keith, my

city editor, told me. He has, so it appears, invested enormous sums.

Consols will go up in consequence. But even then I don't see how he can

repay himself. They cannot rise much."

"I wonder if I was well advised to sell?" said Mrs. Armstrong,

nervously. "They say Sir Michael never makes a mistake. He must have

some private information."

"I don't think that is possible, Mrs. Armstrong," Ommaney said. "Of

course Sir Michael may very likely know something about the situation

which is not yet public. He may be reckoning on it. But things are in

such hopeless confusion that no sane speculator would buy for a small

rise which endured for half a day. He would not be able to unload

quickly enough. It seems as if Sir Michael is buying for a permanent

recovery. And I assure you that nothing can bring _that_ about. Only one

thing at least."

"What is that?" asked both Mrs. Armstrong and Schuabe together.

The editor paused, while a faint smile flickered over his face. "Ah," he

said, "an impossibility, of course. If any one discovered that 'The

Discovery' was a fraud--a great forgery, for instance--_then_ we should

see a universal relief."

"_That_, of course, is asking for an impossibility," said Mrs.

Armstrong, rather shortly. She resented the somewhat flippant tone of

the great man.

These things were all her life. To Ommaney they but represented a

passing panorama in which he took absolutely no _personal_ interest. The

novelist disliked and feared this detachment. It warred with her strong

sense of mental duty. The highly trained journalist, to whom all life

was but news, news, news, was a strange modern product which warred with

her sense of what was fitting.

"You're not well!" said the editor, suddenly turning to Schuabe, who had

grown very pale. His voice reassured them.

It was without a trace of weakness.

The "Perfectly, thank you" was deliberate and calm as ever. Ommaney,

however, noticed that, with a very steady hand, the host poured out

nearly a tumbler of Burgundy and drank it in one draught.

Schuabe had been taking nothing stronger than water hitherto during the

progress of the meal.

The man who had been waiting had just left the room for coffee. After

Ommaney had spoken, there was a slight, almost embarrassed, silence. A

sudden interruption came from the door of the room.

It opened with a quick push and turn of the handle, quite unlike the

deliberate movements of any one of the attendants.

Sir Robert Llwellyn strode into the room. It was obvious that he was

labouring under some almost uncontrollable agitation. The great face,

usually so jolly and fresh-coloured, was ghastly pale. There was a fixed

stare of fright in the eyes. He had forgotten to remove his silk hat,

which was grotesquely tilted on his head, showing the hair matted with

perspiration.

Ommaney and Mrs. Armstrong sat perfectly still.

They were paralysed with wonder at the sudden apparition of this famous

person, obviously in such urgent hurry and distress.

Then, with the natural instinct of well-bred people, their heads turned

away, their eyes fell to their plates, and they began to converse in an

undertone upon trivial matters.

Schuabe had risen with a quick, snake-like movement, utterly unlike his

general deliberation. In a moment he had crossed the room and taken

Llwellyn's arm in a firm grip, looking him steadily in the face with an

ominous and warning frown.

That clear, sword-like glance seemed to nerve the big man into more

restraint. A wave of artificial composure passed over him. He removed

his hat and breathed deeply.

Then he spoke in a voice which trembled somewhat, but which nevertheless

attained something of control.

"I am really very sorry," he said, with a ghastly attempt at a smile,

"to have burst in upon you like this. I didn't know you had friends with

you. Please excuse me. But the truth is--the truth is, that I am in

rather a hurry to see you. I have an important message for you from--"

he hesitated a single moment before he found the ready lie--"from Lord

----. There are--there is something going on at the House of Commons

which--But I will tell you later on. How do you do, Mrs. Armstrong? How

are you, Ommaney? Fearfully rushed, of course! We archæologists are the

only people who have leisure nowadays. No, thanks, Schuabe, I lunched

before I came. Coffee? Oh, yes; excellent!"

His manner was noticeably forced and unnatural in its artificial

geniality. The man, who had now entered with coffee, brought the tray to

him, but instead of taking any he half filled an empty cup with Kümmel

and drank it off.

His hurried explanation hardly deceived the two shrewd people at the

table, but at least it made it obvious that he wished to be alone with

their host.

There was a little desultory conversation over the coffee, in which

Llwellyn took a too easy and hilarious part, and then Mrs. Armstrong got

up to go.

Ommaney followed her.

Schuabe walked with them a little way down the corridor. While he was

out of the room, Llwellyn walked unsteadily to a sideboard. With shaking

hand he mixed himself a large brandy-and-soda. His shaking hands, the

intense greed with which he swallowed the mixture, were horrible in

their sensual revelation. The mask of pleasantness had gone; the reserve

of good manners disappeared.

He stood there naked, as it were--a vast bulk of a man in deadly fear.

Schuabe came back and closed the door silently. He drew Llwellyn to the

old spot, right in the centre of the great room. There was a wild

question in his eyes which his lips seemed powerless to utter.

"Gertrude!" gasped the big man. "You know she came back to me. I told

you at the club that it was all right between us again?"

An immeasurable relief crossed the Jew's face. He pushed his friend away

with a snarl of concentrated disgust.

"You come here," he hissed venomously, "and burst into my rooms to tell

me of your petty _amours_. Have I not borne with the story of your lust

and degradation enough? You come here as if the--." He stopped suddenly.

The words died away on his lips.

Llwellyn was transformed.

Even in his terror and agitation an ugly sneer blazed out upon his face.

His nostrils curled with evil laughter. His voice became low and

threatening. Something subtly _vulgar_ and _common_ stole into it. It

was this last that arrested Schuabe. It was horrible.

"Not quite so fast, my good friend," said Llwellyn. "Wait and hear my

story; and, confound you! if you talk to me like that again, I'll kill

you! Things are equal now, my Jewish partner--equal between us. If I am

in danger, why, so are you; and either you speak civilly or you pay the

penalty."

A curious thing happened. The enormous overbearing brutality of the man,

his _vitality_, seemed to cow and beat down the master mind.

Schuabe, for the moment, was weak in the hands of his inferior. As yet

he had heard nothing of what the other had come to tell; he was

conscious only of hands of cold fear knocking at his heart.

He seemed to shrink into himself. For the first and last time in his

life, the inherited slavishness in his blood asserted itself.

He had never known such degradation before. The beauty of his face went

out like an extinguished candle. His features grew markedly Semitic; he

cringed and fawned, as his ancestors had cringed and fawned before fools

in power hundreds of years back.

This inexpressibly disgusting change in the distinguished man had its

immediate effect upon his companion. It was new and utterly startling.

He had come to lean on Schuabe, to place the threads of a dreadful

dilemma in his hand, to rest upon his master mind.

So, for a second or two, in loathsome pantomime the men bowed and

salaamed to each other in the centre of the room, not knowing what they

did.

It was Sir Robert who pulled himself together first. The fear which was

rushing over him in waves gave him back a semblance of control.

"We must not quarrel now," he said in a swift, eager voice. "Listen to

me. We are on the brink of terrible things. Gertrude Hunt came back to

me, as you know. She told me that she was sick to death of her friends

the priests, that the old life called her, that she could not live

apart from me. She mocked at her sudden conversion. I thought that it

was real. I laughed and mocked with her. I trusted her as I would trust

myself."

He paused for a moment, choking down the immense agitation which rose up

in his throat and half strangled speech.

Schuabe's eyes, attentive and fixed, were still uncomprehending. Still

the Jew did not see whither Llwellyn was leading--could not understand.

"She's gone!" said the big man, all colour fading absolutely from his

face. "And, Schuabe, in my mad folly and infatuation, in my incredible

foolishness ... _I told her everything_."

A sudden sharp animal moan burst from Schuabe's lips--clear, vibrant,

and bestial in the silence.

His rigidity changed into an extraordinary trembling. It was a temporary

palsy which set every separate limb trembling with an independent

motion. He waited thus, with an ashen face, to hear more.

Llwellyn, when the irremediable fact had passed his lips, when the

enormous difficulty of confession was surmounted, proceeded with slight

relief:

"This might, you will think, be just possibly without significance for

us. It might be a coincidence. _But it is not so, Schuabe._ I know now,

as certainly as I can know anything, that she came to me, was sent to

me, by the people who have got hold of her. _There has been suspicion

for some time_, there must have been. We have been ruined by this woman

I trusted."

"But why ... how?"

"Because, Schuabe, as I was walking down Chancery Lane not an hour since

I saw Gertrude come out of Lincoln's Inn with the clergyman Gortre. They

got into a cab together and drove away. And more: I learn from Lambert,

my assistant at the Museum, that Harold Spence, the journalist, who is a

member of his club and a friend of his, _left for Palestine several

days ago_."

"I have just heard," whispered Schuabe, "that Sir Michael Manichoe has

been buying large parcels of Consols."

"The thing is over. We must----"

"Hush!" said the Jew, menacingly. "All is not lost yet. Perhaps, the

strong probability is, that only this Gortre knows yet. Even if anything

is known to others, it is only vague, and cannot be substantiated until

the man in Palestine gets a letter. Without this woman and Gortre we are

safe."

The Professor looked at him and understood. Nor was there any terror in

his face, only a faint film of relief.

Five minutes afterwards the two distinguished men, talking easily

together, walked through the vestibule of the hotel, down the great

courtyard and into the roaring Strand.

A hotel clerk explained the celebrities to a voluble group of American

tourists as they went by.

CHAPTER V

BY THE TOWER OF HIPPICUS

Harold Spence was essentially a man of action. His mental and moral

health depended for its continuance upon the active prosecution of

affairs more than most men's.

A product of the day, "modern" in his culture, modern in his ideals, he

must live the vivid, eager, strenuous life of his times or the fibres of

his brain became slack and loosened.

In the absorbing interest of his first mission to the East Spence had

found work which exactly suited his temperament. It was work which keyed

him up to his best and most successful efforts.

But when that was over, when the news that he had given brilliantly to

the world became the world's and was no longer his, then the reaction

set in.

The whole man became relaxed and unstrung; he was drifting into a sloth

of the mind and body when Gortre had arrived from the North with his

message of Hope.

The renewed opportunity of action, the tonic to his weak and waning

faith--that faith which alone was able to keep him clean and

worthy--again strung up the chords of his manhood till they vibrated in

harmony.

Once more Spence was in the Holy City.

But a short time ago he was at Jerusalem as the collective eye of

millions of Englishmen, the telegraph wires stretched out behind him to

London.

Now he was, to all official intents, a private person, yet, as the

steamer cast anchor in the roadstead of Jaffa, he had realised that a

more tremendous responsibility than ever before rested with him.

The last words spoken to Spence in England had been those of Sir Michael

Manichoe. The great man was bidding him good-bye at Charing Cross.

"Remember," he had said, "that whatever proof or help we may get from

this woman, Gertrude Hunt, will be but the basis for you to work on in

the East. We shall cable every result of our investigations here.

Remember that, as we think, you have immense ability and resource

against you. Go very warily. As I have said before, _no_ sum is too

great to sacrifice, no sacrifice too great to make."

There had been a day's delay at Jaffa. It had been a day of strange,

bewildering thoughts to the journalist.

The "Gate of the Holy Land" is not, as many people suppose, a fine

harbour, a thronged port.

The navies of the ancient world which congregated there were smaller

than even the coasting steamers of to-day. They found shelter in a

narrow space of more or less untroubled water between the shelving rock

of the long, flat shore and a low reef rising out of the sea parallel to

the town. The vessels with timber for Solomon's Temple tossed almost

unsheltered before the terraces of ochre-coloured Oriental houses.

For several hours it had been too rough for the passengers on the French

boat to land. More than a mile of restless bottle-green sea separated

them from the rude ladders fastened to the wave-washed quay.

There had been one of the heavy rain-storms which at that season of the

year visit Palestine. Over the Moslem minarets of the town the purple

tops of the central mountains of Judah and Ephraim showed clear and far

away.

The time of waiting gave Spence an opportunity for collecting and

ordering his thoughts, for summing up the situation and trying to get at

the very heart of its meaning.

The messagery steamer was the only one in the roads. Two coasting craft

with rags of light brown sails were beating over the swell into the

Mediterranean.

The sky was cloudy, the air still and warm. Only the sea was turbulent

and uneasy, the steamer rolled with a sickening, regular movement, and

the anchor chains beat and rattled with the precision of a pendulum.

Spence sat on the india-rubber treads of the steps leading up to the

bridge, with an arm crooked round a white-painted stanchion supporting

the hand-rail. A few yards away two lascars were working a chain and

pulley, drawing up zinc boxes of ashes from the stoke-hold and tipping

them into the sea. As the clinkers fell into the water a little cloud of

steam rose from them.

There were but few passengers on the ship, which wore a somewhat

neglected, "off-duty" aspect. No longer were the cabins filled with

drilled bands of tourists with their loud-voiced lecturing cleric in

charge. Not now was there the accustomed rush to the main deck, the

pious ejaculations at the first sight of Palestine, the electric

knocking at the hearts even of the least devout.

Nobody came to Jerusalem now from England. From Beyrout to Jaffa the

maritime plain was silent and deserted, and no tourists plucked the

roses of Sharon any more.

A German commercial traveller, with cases of cutlery, from Essen, was

arguing with the little Greek steward about his wine bill; a

professional photographer from Alexandria, travelling with his cameras

for a New York firm of art publishers; two Turkish officers smoking

cigarettes; a Russian gentleman with two young sons; a fat man in

flannels and with an unshaven chin, very much at home; an orange buyer

from a warehouse by the Tower Bridge--these were the undistinguished

companions of the journalist.

The steward clapped his hands; _déjeuner_ was ready. The passengers

tumbled down to the saloon. Spence declined the loud-voiced Cockney

invitation of the fruit merchant and remained where he was, gazing with

unseeing eyes at the low Eastern town, which rose and fell before him as

the ship rolled lazily from side to side.

There was something immensely, tremendously incongruous in his position.

It was without precedent. He had come, in the first place, as a sort of

private inquiry agent. He was a detective charged by a group of three or

four people, a clergyman or two, a wealthy Member of Parliament, to find

out the year-old movements--if, indeed, movements there had been!--of a

distinguished European professor. He was to pry, to question, to

deceive. This much in itself was utterly astonishing, strangely

difficult of realisation.

But how much more there was to stir and confuse his brain!

He was coming back alone to Jerusalem. But a short time ago he had seen

the great _savants_ of Europe--only thirty miles beyond this Eastern

town--reluctantly pronounce the words which meant the downfall of the

Christian Faith.

The gunboat which had brought them all was anchored in this very spot. A

Turkish guard had been waiting yonder on the quay, they had gone along

the new road to Jerusalem in open carriages,--through the orange

groves,--riding to make history.

And now he was here once more.

While he sat on this dingy steamer in this remote corner of the

Mediterranean, it was no exaggeration to say that the whole world was in

a state of cataclysm such as it had hardly, at least not often, known

before.

It was his business to watch events, to forecast whither they would

lead. He was a Simon Magus of the modern world, with an electric wire

and stylographic pen to prophesy with. He of all men could see and

realise what was happening all over the globe. He was more alarmed than

even the man in the street. This much was certain.

And a day's easy ride away lay the little town which held the acre of

rocky ground from which all these horrors, this imminent upheaval, had

come.

Again it seemed beyond the power of his brain to seize it all, to

contain the vastness of his thoughts.

These facts, which all the world knew, were almost too stupendous for

belief. But when he dwelt upon the _personal_ aspect of them he was as a

traveller whose way is irrevocably barred by sheer precipice.

At the very first _he_ had been one mouthpiece of the news. For some

hours the packet containing it had hung in the dressing-room of a London

Turkish bath.

His act had recoiled upon himself, for when Gortre found him in the

chambers he was spiritually dying.

Could this suspicion of Schuabe and Llwellyn possibly be true? It had

seemed both plausible and probable in Sir Michael's study in London. But

out here in the Jaffa roadstead, when he realised--or tried to

realise--that on him might depend the salvation of the world.... He

laughed aloud at that monstrous grandiloquent phrase. He was in the

nineteenth century, not the tenth.

He doubted more and more. Had it been any one else it might have been

possible to believe. But he could not see himself in this stupendous

_rôle_.

The mental processes became insupportable; he dismissed thought with a

great effort of will and got up from his seat.

At least there was some _action_, something definite to do waiting for

him. Speculation only blurred everything. He would be true to the trust

his friends in England reposed in him and leave the rest to happen as it

was fated.

There was a relief in that attitude--the Arab attitude. _Kismet!_

Griggs, the fruit merchant, came up from the saloon wiping his lips.

"Bit orf," he said, "waiting like this. But the sea will go down soon.

Last spring I had to go on to Beyrout, the weather was that rough. Ever

tried that Vin de Rishon le Zion? It's a treat. Made from Bordeaux vines

transplanted to Palestine--you'll pass the fields on the way up--just

had a half bottle. Hallo!--look, there's the boat at last--old Francis

Karane's boat. Must go and look after my traps."

A long boat was creeping out from behind the reef. Spence went to his

cabin to see after his light kit. It was better to move and work than to

think.

* * * * *

It was early morning, the morning after Spence's arrival in Jerusalem.

He slept well and soundly in his hotel room, tired by the long ride--for

he had come on horseback over the moonlit slopes of Ajalon.

When at length he awoke it was with a sensation of mental and bodily

vigour, a quickening of all his pulses in hope and expectation, which

was in fine contrast to the doubts and hesitations of the Jaffa roads.

A bright sun poured into the room.

He got up and went to the window. There was a deep, unspoken prayer in

his heart.

The hotel was in Akra, the European and Christian quarter of Jerusalem,

close by the Jaffa Gate, with the Tower of Hippicus frowning down upon

it.

The whole extent of the city lay beneath the windows in a glorious

panorama, washed as it was in the brilliant morning light. Far beyond, a

dark shadow yet, the Olivet range rose in background to the minarets and

cupolas below it.

His eye roved over the prospect, marking and recognising the buildings.

There was the purple dome of the great Mosque of Omar, very clear

against the amber-primrose lights of dawn.

Where now the muezzin called to Allah, the burnt-offerings had once

smoked in the courts of the Temple--it was in that spot the mysterious

veil had parted in symbol of God's pain and death. It was in the porches

bounding the court of the Gentiles that Christ had taught.

Closer, below the Antonia Tower, rose the dark, lead-covered cupola of

the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Great emotion came to him as he gazed at the shrine sacred above all

others for so many centuries.

He thought of that holy spot diminished in its ancient glory in the eyes

of half the Christian world.

Perhaps no more would the Holy Fire burst forth from the yellow, aged

marble of the Tomb at Easter time.

Who could say?

Was not he, Harold Spence, there to try that awful issue?

He wondered, as he gazed, if another Easter would still see the wild

messengers bursting away to Nazareth and Bethlehem bearing The Holy

Flame.

The sun became suddenly more powerful. It threw a warmer light into the

grey dome, and, deep down, the cold, dark waters of Hezekiah's Pool

became bright and golden.

The sacred places focussed the light and sprang into a new life.

He made the sign of the Cross, wondering fancifully if this were an

omen.

Then with a shudder he looked to the left towards the ogre-grey Turkish

battlements of the Damascus Gate.

It was there, over by the Temple Quarries of Bezetha, the New Tomb of

Joseph lay.

Yes! straight away to the north lay the rock-hewn sepulchre where the

great doctors had sorrowfully pronounced the end of so many Christian

hopes.

How difficult to believe that so short a distance away lay the centre of

the world's trouble! Surely he could actually distinguish the

guard-house in the wall which had been built round the spot.

Over the sad Oriental city--for Jerusalem is always sad, as if the

ancient stones were still conscious of Christ's passion--he gazed

towards the terrible place, wondering, hoping, fearing.

* * * * *

It was very difficult to know how to begin upon this extraordinary

affair.

When he had made the first meal of the day and was confronted with the

business, with the actual fact of what he had to do, he was aghast at

what seemed his own powerlessness.

He had no plan of action, no method. For an hour he felt absolutely

hopeless.

Sir Robert Llwellyn, so his friends believed, had been in Jerusalem

prior to the discovery of the New Tomb.

The first duty of the investigator was to find out whether that was

true.

How was he to do it?

In his irresolution he decided to go out into the city. He would call

upon various people he knew, friends of Cyril Hands, and trust to events

for guiding his further movements.

The rooms where Hands had always stayed were close to the schools of the

Church Missionary Society; he would go there. Down in the Mûristan area

he could also chat with the doctor at the English Ophthalmic Hospice; he

would call on his way to the New Tomb.

It was at The Tomb that he might learn something, perhaps, yet how

nebulous it all was, how unsatisfying!

He set out, down the roughly paved streets, through the arched and

shaded bazaars--places less full of colour and more sombre than the

markets of other Oriental cities--to the heart of the city, where the

streets were bounded by the vision of the distant hills of Olivet.

The religious riots and unrest were long since over. The pilgrims to the

Church of the Holy Sepulchre were less in number, but were mostly

Russians of the Greek Church, who still accepted the Church of the Holy

Sepulchre as the true goal of their desires.

The Greeks and Armenians hated each other no more than usual. The Turks

were held in good control by a strong governor of Jerusalem. Nor was

this a time of special festival. The city, never quite at rest, was

still in its normal condition.

The Bedouin women with their unveiled faces, tattooed in blue, strode to

the bazaars with the butter they had brought in from their desert herds.

They wore gaudy head-dresses and high red boots, and they jostled the

"pale townsmen" as they passed them; free, untamed creatures of the sun

and air.

As Spence passed by the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a

crowd of Fellah boys ran up to him with candles ornamented with scenes

from the Passion, pressing him to buy.

The sun grew hotter as he walked, though the purple shadows of the

narrow streets were cool enough. As he left the European heights of Akra

and dived deep into the eastern central city, the well-remembered scenes

and smells rose up like a wall before him and the rest of life.

He began to walk more slowly, in harmony with the slow-moving forms

around. He had been to Omdurman with the avenging army, knew

Constantinople during the Greek war--the East had meaning for him.

And as the veritable East closed round him his doubts and self-ridicule

vanished. His strange mission seemed possible here.

As he was passing one of the vast ruined structures once belonging to

the mediæval knights of St. John, thinking, indeed, that he himself was

a veritable Crusader, a thin, importunate voice came to him from an

angle of the stone-work.

He looked down and saw an old Nurié woman sitting there. She belonged to

the "Nowar," the unclean pariah class of Palestine, who are said to

practise magic arts. A gipsy of the Sussex Downs would be her sister in

England.

The woman was tattooed from head to foot. She wore a blue turban, and

from squares and angles drawn in the dust before her, Spence knew her

for a professional geomancer or fortune-teller.

He threw her a coin in idle speculation and asked her "his lot" for the

immediate future.

The woman had a few shells of different shapes in a heap by her side,

and she threw them into the figures on the ground.

Then, picking them up, she said, in bastard Arabic interspersed with a

hard "K"-like sound, which marks the nomad in Palestine, "Effendi, you

have a sorrow and bewilderment just past you, and, like a black star, it

has fixed itself on your forehead. A letter is coming to you from over

the seas telling you of work to do. And then you will leave this country

and cross home in a steamer, with a story to tell many people."

Spence smiled at the glib prophecy. Certainly it might very well outline

his future course of action, but it was no more than a shrewd and

obvious guess.

He was turning to go away when the woman opened her clothes in front,

showing the upper part of her body literally covered with tattoo marks,

and drew out a small bag.

"Stay, my lord," she said. "I can tell you much more if you will hear. I

have here a very precious stone rubbed with oil, which I brought from

Mecca. Now, if you will hold this stone in your hand and give me the

price you shall hear what will come to you, O camel of the house!"

The curious sensation of "expectation" that had been coming over Spence,

the fatalistic waiting for chance to guide him which, in this wild and

dream-like business, had begun to take hold of him, made him give the

hag what she asked.

There was something in clairvoyance perhaps; at any rate he would hear

what the Nurié woman had to say.

She took a dark and greasy pebble from the bag and put it in his hand,

gazing at his fingers for a minute or two in a fixed stare without

speaking.

When at last she broke the silence Spence noticed that something had

gone out of her voice. The medicant whine, the ingratiating invitation

had ceased.

Her tones were impersonal, thinner, a _recitative_.

"Ere sundown my lord will hear that a friend has died and his spirit is

in the well of souls."

"Tell me of this friend, O my aunt!" Spence said in colloquial Arabic.

"Thy friend is a Frank, but more than a Frank, for he is one knowing

much of this country, and has walked the stones of Jerusalem for many

years. Thou wilt hear of his death from the lips of one who will tell

thee of another thou seekest, and know not that it is he.... Give me

back the stone, lord, and go thy way," she broke off suddenly, with

seeming sincerity. "I will tell thee no more, for great business is in

thy hands and thou art no ordinary wayfarer. Why didst thou hide it from

me, Effendi?"

Drawing her blue head-dress over her face, the woman refused to speak

another word.

Spence passed on, wondering. He knew, as all travellers who are not

merely tourists know, that no one has ever been quite able to sift the

fraud and trickery from the strange power possessed by those Eastern

geomancers. It is an undecided question still, but only the shallow dare

to say that _all_ is imposture.[2]

And even the London journalist could not be purely materialistic in

Jerusalem, the City of Sorrows.

He went on towards his destination. Not far from the missionary

establishment was a building which was the headquarters of the Palestine

Exploring Society in Jerusalem.