For a long time I could not persuade them to let me go. But I pleaded so hard and set out the arguments so forcibly that at last I persuaded them. For it was clear that if Lembken, realizing that his power was waning, should accept our offer, then my plan was the wisest; and, if he refused, our desperate chance would lose but little by my death.

It was even possible that the rÔle for which he had cast me was the same that I was to play for the Cause. He had meant to use me against Sanson; and the more I thought of it the stronger grew my conviction that he had meant to have me challenge Sanson in the Temple.

So, one by one, the opposing arguments ended, and the committee leader gave me my instructions.

“You must evade the battleplanes and enter London afoot,” he said. “You will proceed to the People’s House, demand admission, and offer Lembken our terms: his palace, honors, wealth and pleasures. If he accepts you will return to us bearing his acceptance in the form of writing, that we may have a hold on him to use with Sanson, should he betray us afterward. If you are detected by the searchlights before you reach London, you will be taken before Hancock, to whom you will make your demand for an interview with his chief. A messenger will remain posted near this meeting place in order to convey you to us on your return, wherever we may be. Now, God be with you, Arnold!”

I think they understood the turmoil in my heart, for they were very considerate, and troubled me with no more suggestions than these. For myself, I confess that the thought of Esther’s peril obliterated from my mind nearly all other considerations, and, in truth, I cared more for her safety than for the Cause. I could do nothing till the time of her awakening came; but, when she awakened, I meant to be at her side.

The rushlights were blown out, and we bade each other adieu at the cellar entrance, and separated. Many of those who were present had traveled miles through the forests in order to attend the meeting. It had been arranged that David and Elizabeth should make their quarters with the band commanded by the leader, to which the bishop and Paul belonged. I was to accompany them as far as the old road, where our paths divided.

When we reached it, Elizabeth turned and, putting her hands upon my shoulders, looked very earnestly at me.

“Arnold,” she said, “the day is near when we four shall be friends in a happier world. God bless you and protect the woman you love.”

I pressed her hands. Then David grasped my own in his.

“Good-bye, Arnold,” he said. “The Providence that brought you to me will act to save us all.”

And he, too, was gone. I waited at the edge of the old road, watching them disappear among the trees. The last thing that I saw was the bishop’s white beard, a spot in the darkness. Then I was alone, with the London road before me, and a mission as desperate as any that was ever undertaken, and as pregnant with possibilities.

I do not know how long I had been traveling, whether five minutes or twenty, nor whether I walked or ran. I became conscious of a soft whistling in the air, and, glancing up, saw a dark airplane, black against the risen moon.

I sprang from the road and hid myself in the underbrush.

The airplane dipped, passed me, and dipped again, with the purpose, evidently, of alighting in the road. It passed beyond my sight, flying low, and veering from side to side as its occupant examined the ground for a resting place.

As I rose to continue my journey I heard a low hail among the trees. I started around, to see the old bishop approaching me at a jog-trot. He came up panting, and stood before me, holding his pastoral staff against his breast.

“Did you see the airplane?” he asked, following the road with his eyes.

“What are you doing here, Bishop Alfred?” I asked in astonishment, for there was an expression of supreme, benignant happiness upon his face. “Are you alone?”

“Yes, alone,” he answered, smiling. “I left them quietly. They would not have let me go. I followed you until I saw the airplane. I am going to Lembken in your place.”

“But you will be put to death!” I cried. “Surely, you know—”

“Yes, but that is all right,” he answered. “It is three years now since any priest was burned for the faith. I have been thinking about it for a long time. Now I am ready. I am going into the People’s House to preach the Gospel. I—I ran away from David,” he added, chuckling at the success of his maneuver.

I threatened and pleaded in vain, for the old man’s face had the joyousness of a child’s.

“It’s no use talking, Arnold,” he said, patting my arm affectionately. “I am a stubborn man when my mind is made up, and it is made up now. I have thought about it a long time. You see, I am the last bishop in England. I am not a learned man, but the Lord Bishop of London”—how happily he said that!—“laid hands on me an hour before they burned him in Westminster Hall. Now it is right that I should follow him and take on martyrdom. It will give inspiration to the people. It will be a wonderful encouragement to them to see me among the fagots. I have prayed the Lord to give me strength, because I am a cowardly old man, and He has done so. I should like to consecrate my successor before I die. But the Russians will take care of that, and it is fitter that they should renew the line in England. They will be here in a few days to save the world, and then we shall all be one.”

“How do you know?” I cried.

“It is given to me to know,” he answered, wagging his white head. “So there is no longer any reason why I should not go into the People’s House and bear testimony to the truth. You can go back now. I will carry your message to Lembken before I die.”

Before I could restrain him he had started off along the road, and his quick jog-trot gave him almost as much speed as my scrambling, wild pursuit. I caught him, however, a hundred yards away.

“Bishop Alfred, you must go back to your friends,” I said. “Your idea is nonsense. There is no need to sacrifice yourself.”

He shook his head and detached himself. I stumbled over a projecting root, and when I was on my feet again I saw the old man another fifty yards away. Once more I was approaching him. And then I halted suddenly and drew back among the trees, for just beyond the bend in the road lay the dark airplane, and the old man had stopped beside it, evidently waiting to be taken in.

However, since he continued to wait there, I advanced noiselessly toward it, with the hope of rescuing him, until I realized that the dark airplane was empty.

The occupant had left it, but for what reason, or where he had gone, I could not surmise.

I was just where the old road joined with a small, twisting path that struck back among the trees. Some instinct cautioned me to silence. If I had spoken ... but I did not speak, and then, among the trees, following the crooked trail not fifty paces away, I saw the aviator, walking with head bent downward, evidently unconscious of human proximity.

I held my breath in terror lest the old man should speak. But he stood motionless as a statue beside the dark airplane; he seemed wrapt in a reverie. The hope arose of saving him. That was Hancock’s airplane; his fate, then, lay with Hancock, and Lembken had told me that the Air-Admiral was a Christian. Surely he would take pity on the old, childish man. He knew me. I might appeal to him....

The twisting track, which had hidden him from my eyes, brought him into view once more, clear against the low moon that made the moving figure a silhouette against its circle. I crept up, until suddenly I reeled and nearly fell, overcome by the magnitude of my discovery. For this was not Air-Admiral Hancock, but Hugo Sanson, the madman who ruled the Federation!

For a few moments I was powerless to stir. A raiding beast of night went rustling through the trees behind me. I heard an owl hoot. I lurked like some savage in the underbrush, and everything went from my memory, save Esther in peril, and Sanson, the evil genius of humanity, powerless in my hands if I could spring on him and strangle him before he had time to draw his Ray rod.

Then the tracking instinct awoke in me. I began stalking him as stealthily as any moccasined redskin followed his quarry. He was now only twenty paces away, and his walk showed that he suspected no danger.

It was a trail unknown to me, and I could only follow in patience. It wound to right and then to left, until at last it blended in a wider trail. And then I knew where I was. We were on the road that led to the cellar.

The scattered bricks became the heaping piles. I crouched low. Almost upon this site Sir Spofforth’s house had stood. There, where the beeches waved their leafless arms had been Esther’s tea-roses. And here were briers, sprung, perhaps, from those. It did not need these remembrances to make my resolution firm.

Sanson was going down. If he had gone there an hour earlier he would have walked alone into the presence of men who had a thousand deaths laid up against him. But Fate had saved him for me!

For an instant the thought occurred to me that possibly Sanson, acquainted with the details of the popular conspiracy, had come to offer terms against Lembken. But I dismissed that thought as impossible. Sanson would hardly have come there for such a purpose; at least, he would have come with the Guard.

The short ladder had been removed and hidden among the trees, but Sanson seemed to know the way intimately. Lying upon my face among the bricks, I saw Sanson enter the cellar, holding in one hand a little solar light. He passed through the gap in the wall into the vault.

I made my own descent with infinite care, taking pains to dislodge no stone that might betray my presence. Now I was in the cellar on hands and knees, watching Sanson as he moved to and fro inside the inner chamber. My brain was working like a mill—and yet I did not know wholly what I should do. If I killed Sanson, could I be sure that his death would set Esther free? Could I seize him and exact terms from him? Then there was a certain difficulty in springing upon the man quickly enough to prevent him from drawing his Ray rod; and there was the innate revulsion against choking a man to death.

As I deliberated, Fate seemed to solve my problem, for my fingers touched and closed about a smooth object that lay on the ground. For a moment I thought it was the branch of a tree. But no branch grew so smooth. A polished stave? It had been fashioned and grooved.... It was a Ray rod.

If I had doubted my mission I ceased to do so in that moment. I felt along the weapon in the darkness, from the brass guard, which stood up, leaving the button unprotected, to the little glass bulb near the head, through which the destroying Ray would stream. I raised the Ray rod and aimed it.

The solar light moved in the vault, and the shadow cast by the wall went back and forth as Sanson tramped to and fro. He was muttering to himself. He passed across the gap, and the little light shone on me. But he did not look toward me, and then he was behind the wall again and the light vanished.

Next time he passed I would fire. Yet I did not fire, and back and forth, and forth and back he tramped, talking to himself as any lesser man might have done. I had no compunction at all; I would have killed him as I would have killed a deadly snake; and yet, so diabolical was the fascination he exercised over me, I could not press the button.

I gathered my resolution together. I would fire when he passed the gap again. No, the next time. Well, the next, then. My fingers tightened on the handle. I saw Sanson emerge, the spark of light in his hand. The tight, white tunic was in the center of the gap. Now! I pressed the button, aiming at his heart.

The glass of the Ray rod grew fiery red. The button seared my hand, and a smell of charred wood filled my nostrils. I dropped the weapon, and it fell clattering to the ground. Sanson was standing in the gap, unharmed.

My Ray rod was the one that I had unwittingly discharged on the occasion when I scrambled for the cellar roof. It had given me life then; it seemed now to have brought me death. Of course it was useless till it had been recharged; now it emitted only the red-mull rays: heat, not cold combustion.

Sanson had halted as I aimed. Now, at the sound of the falling Ray rod he sprang forward and turned his solar light on me. His poise was a crouching leopard’s. In his left hand he held the light, and in his right was his own Ray rod, covering me.

I looked at him, I stared at him, I rose upon my feet and staggered to him. Something in his poise, the whitening hair, brushed back, something in the man’s soul that the years could not conceal reminded me.... I stood looking into the face of Herman Lazaroff!