Three hours later, when the curious rite of acknowledgment had been
completed and the concourse of zealots had departed from Hellier
Crescent, the first night in his new kingdom opened for the Prophet. As
the clocks of Brompton were striking two, the six Arch-Mystics--each of
whom possessed rooms in a remote portion of the house--lingeringly and
fearfully bade him good-night, and left him alone with the Precursor in
the apartments that for nearly fifty years had been kept swept and
garnished in expectation of his advent.
Apart from their suggestion of the mystical and fantastic, these rooms
possessed an intrinsic interest of their own. And some consciousness of
this interest appeared to be at work within the Prophet's mind; for
scarcely had he and his companion been assured of privacy, than he rose
from the massive ivory chair which had been apportioned to him and from
which he had made his second and private justification of his claims;
and very slowly and deliberately began a circuit of the chamber.
With engrossed attention he passed from one to another of the rare and
costly objects that formed the furniture of the place; while, from the
ebony table in the centre of the room, his red-haired companion watched
him with vigilant eyes.
Still moving with unruffled deliberation, he completed his tour of the
apartment; then a remarkable--a startling thing took place. He wheeled
round, laid his hands heavily on the Precursor's shoulders, and looking
closely into his face, broke into speech.
"Well?" he demanded, intensely. "Well? Well? What have you to say?"
At first the red-haired man sat watching him, mute and motionless; then
with a suddenness equal to his own, he released himself, leaned forward
in his chair, and silently uncorked a gold flask that stood upon the
table before him. Lifting it high, he poured some wine into two glass
goblets, and without a word handed one to the white-robed Prophet, and
himself picked up the other.
"John," he said, deliberately, "you were magnificent! Let me give you a
toast? Power! Power made Absolute!"
With a grave gesture the Prophet extended his hand, and their glasses
clinked.
"Power made Absolute!" he responded, in a low, deep voice.
In silence they drank the toast; but, as he replaced his glass upon the
table, the Prophet shook off his gravity, and turned again to his
companion.
"Now!" he exclaimed. "Now! Out with it all! How much of this has been
native adroitness, and how much unbelievable good-fortune? Out with it!
I'm hungry and thirsty for the truth."
For answer the Precursor slowly lifted the gold flask and replenished
his own glass. "Truth in a golden flask! But, to throw a sop to your
curiosity, it was a matter of native genius engineered by Providence. I
don't mind admitting that when I stood on the doorstep of this house
fifteen nights ago and knocked the mystic knock, I felt like a man
embarking on a coffin-ship." He stopped to drain his glass.
The Prophet took a step forward.
"And then?" he said, eagerly. "Then?"
The other waved his empty glass.
"Oh, there entered the native genius of Terence Dominick Devereaux!
Under that tremendous escort I stormed the citadel--"
The Prophet smiled. "And the Mystic ears, I have no doubt."
For a third time the Precursor filled his glass.
"The tongue is mightier--and a good deal more portable--than either the
pen or the sword, John," he said, sagely. "Paving your way with words
has been an unrecognized work of art. But how about yourself? I have my
own curiosity." He wheeled round in his seat and looked into his
companion's face.
The Prophet looked away.
"Oh, I had my qualms, too!" he said, slowly. "Just for a moment the
world seemed to tremble, when the old Arch-Councillor groped forward and
put his hands over my face. It swept me off my feet--swept me back ten
years. It was like a vision in a crystal--if such a thing could exist. I
saw the whole past scene. The bare room--the old dead man--myself; the
overwhelming wish to avenge my wrongs, and the sudden suggestion that
turned the wish cold. I saw the long, bleak night in which I completed
the colossal task of copying the Scitsym line for line; I saw the gray
morning steal in across the room as I closed the book, returned it to
its safe and replaced the key on my uncle's neck in preparation for the
arrival of the Arch-Councillor. It all passed before my mind, and then
in a flash was gone. I ceased to be John Henderson."
The Precursor glanced quickly towards the door.
"Avoid that name. Habits grow--and so do suspicions. Your probation has
been too long and too hard to permit us to run risks. Now that you've
stepped into your kingdom--" He made an expressive gesture.
The Prophet laughed shortly, then suddenly turned grave again.
"You are right!" he said. "Only a man with a light conscience can skate
on thin ice. To return to our original subject, what about the inner
workings of this odd game? It is so curious to have lived for years on
theory, and suddenly to come face to face with practice. I tell you I'm
starving for facts." He stepped forward quickly and dropped into a chair
that faced his companion's.
"Out with it all! To begin, who is the master-spirit? You know what I
mean. The master-spirit in the true sense. Poor old blind Arian doesn't
stand for much."
The Precursor looked meditatively at his empty glass.
"No," he said, thoughtfully. "You touch truth there! Michael Arian is
the cipher; Bale-Corphew's the meaning. Bale-Corphew is an interesting
man, John--I had almost said a dangerous man--"
The Prophet's lip curled slightly.
"Dangerous!"
"Yes; dangerous in a sense. In the sense that a personality always is
dangerous. Among the six Arch-Mystics there is, to my thinking, only one
_man_, and he interests me. He interests me, does Horatio
Bale-Corphew!"
The Prophet leaned forward in his chair.
"I think I catch your meaning," he said. "Something of the same idea
occurred to me when he rose from his seat to-night. While we spied upon
them in the last six months, he always struck me as curiously
un-English, with that sleek exterior and those flashing eyes of his. But
in the chapel to-night he was almost aggressively alien. When he touched
my arm I could literally feel him bristle."
The other nodded.
"You've said it!" he cried. "Horatio bristles! His whole queer soul is
in this business--every fibre of it. He attempts no division of
allegiance--except, perhaps, in the matter of the heart--"
The Prophet glanced up and smiled.
"The heart? Do my faithful Watchers permit themselves hearts? The
Scitsym makes no provision for such frail organs."
The Precursor laughed again.
"Oh, we Elect are by no means free from little saving weaknesses! That's
where we become dramatic. You can't have effect without contrast.
Horatio, for instance, is instinctively dramatic."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. Oh yes! I know what I'm saying. I've studied them all. More than
once, when my Soul has been communing with your August Spirit, I have
watched Horatio's dramatic contrast from the corner of my eyes."
Again the Prophet smiled.
"The contrast frequents the chapel then?"
"Frequents? Undoubtedly. Horatio has literally swept her into the fold.
She was here to-night to bend the knee to you."
A look of recollection crossed the Prophet's eyes.
"To-night?" he said. "Not the woman who sat beside him? The woman with
the big eyes? She and Bale-Corphew! The idea is absurd!"
"Undeniable, nevertheless. I have deduced the story. The lady is
a widow--no relations--too much freedom--vague aspirations after
the ideal. She has sounded society and found it too shallow;
sounded philosophy and found it too deep; and upon her horizon
of desires and disappointments has loomed the colossal presence of
Bale-Corphew--enthusiast, mystic, leader of a fascinatingly unorthodox
sect. What is the result? The lady--too feminine to be truly modern, too
modern to be wholly womanly--is viewing life through new glasses, and by
their medium seeing Horatio invested with a halo otherwise invisible."
The Prophet remained quiet and silent; then he rose slowly from his seat
and walked round the table. "Devereaux," he said, laconically, "only the
Prophet is going to wear a halo here."
The Precursor's sharply marked, expressive eyebrows went up in quick
comment.
"Can even a latter-day Prophet afford autocracy?"
For a space the Prophet made no response; then he took a step forward
and laid his hand impressively on his friend's shoulder.
"Devereaux," he said, in a new voice--a voice that unconsciously held
something of the command that had marked it in the chapel--"the Prophet
of the Mystics has come to rule. He has not come to follow the laws that
others--that men like Bale-Corphew--have seen fit to make. He has come
to be a law unto himself!"