“I am not at all afraid,” I retorted, nettled at Lazaroff’s sneer, “but how do I get in?”

A dog was yelping somewhere outside the Institute, and all the dogs in Croydon seemed to have taken up its challenge. It was difficult for me to make my voice audible above the uproar.

“I am not at all afraid,” I repeated, “but—”

I was back in the cellar with Esther and Lazaroff, and we were examining the cylinders. As I looked about me, I seemed to be in the cylinder still, but gradually it expanded, until it became a vast hall, dark, save for a little window near the ceiling, through whose half-opaque crystal a little light filtered in dimly.

Lazaroff seemed to have aged. He wore a white beard, and his touch was very gentle as he bathed my face with water. As I stared at him he became ... somebody whom I had once known ... Bishop Alfred!

“Now you are better,” said the old man, with his child-like smile.

I put my hand up to my aching head. There was a scarred groove along the top of the scalp, where the glow ray had plowed its passage. I began to remember now.

The howling of the dogs broke out afresh. The din was terrific, and the mournful tones of the poor animals’ cries made the place a pandemonium.

“Arnold!” whispered a soft voice at my side.

Elizabeth was kneeling there, and David stood behind her. Next to David stood the little woman who had been our neighbor in the Strangers’ House, and a multitude of men and women, and children, too, watched me through the gloom.

“Where am I? Who are all these?” I asked. Then, lighting upon a more momentous question, “How long have I been here?”

“Three days, Arnold,” whispered Elizabeth.

“Then in two days—two days—” I gasped.

“No, Arnold, tomorrow is the day,” interposed David, coming up to me softly. “Sanson has proclaimed a meeting in the Temple at sunrise, and it is now late afternoon. We are all in his trap. He must have found you, taken you unaware, and fired at you, but afterward he changed his mind and brought you here in his dispatchplane, where he found Bishop Alfred awaiting him, and Elizabeth and myself, who had gone back to find him. I bought a few days’ respite by surrender, and there was even pleasure in the thought that my daughter will not meet her fate in Lembken’s palace.”

“Where, then?” I asked, struggling painfully up.

“In the Vivisection Bureau—with these,” he answered, indicating the assemblage.

“Where are we, David?” I cried in anguish.

“Beneath it. In the vaults where Sanson keeps his morons, Christians, criminals, and dogs, to await the table.”

I was upon my feet raving like a madman, making my way round the vault, striking my fists against the damp stone walls, crazed with the thought of Esther. They followed me, and some laid their hands on me in restraint, but I thrust them away. They thought I could not bear to share their wretched fate. But the nearness of the crisis, the thought of Esther in Sanson’s power deprived me of my senses.

The vault was an enormous one, the only access being at the far end, by means of an oak gate, heavily barred. In this further portion were chained, all along the walls, the dogs destined for the experimental work above. As I drew near the gate the howling broke forth afresh. It steadied me; I came back to my senses; somebody was at my side, clasping my arm and speaking a few timid words in my ear.

I swung around and caught at the little woman who had been our neighbor. She had her children with her, and the three held each other closely, as if their last hour had begun.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

I did not know David was near, but at the words he clasped me in his arms.

“She is here, Arnold,” he answered, “because the last act of terrorism has brought her. Sanson’s reason has left him, and he has flung his net wide over London for victims. He has gathered everyone: morons, Christians, criminals, suspects. She taught her children fairy stories. The inspectors had long suspected it, and they terrified the little girl into admission by threatening to kill the mother. They were then adjudged morons. The mother pleaded to be allowed to accompany them to the table, alleging that her father had been color-blind. Her prayer was granted; she is going, Arnold; we all are going—”

“No,” said the old bishop in a regretful tone, “not one of us is going. You see,” he added in explanation, “the Russians are in Stockholm, and it will not be long before they arrive in London to free the world. That is why Sanson lost his self-control. He knows. He wants to finish his enemies at home before they come.”

“How do you know?” demanded David, while everyone grew still and listened.

“It is given to me to know,” said Bishop Alfred simply, beaming and rubbing his hands. “I should like to have followed my dear master, the Lord Bishop of London, to the fagots, but none of us will go to the tables now, and we shall all have our two names again.”

David drew me aside. “Arnold,” he said, “this situation would have robbed stronger men of their wits. I am afraid that our case is hopeless. One of the Guard, who knows me, has told me that Sanson is preparing for a holocaust of victims tomorrow, to celebrate his coup. He will stop at nothing to appease his blood thirst. Arnold, all our people know who you are. For their sake you must lead and show them how to die, as the first Christians died. It is hard, my dear boy—”

I knew he was not thinking of death, but of my tragedy.

“Your capture has rendered our plans abortive,” he went on. “But still there may be some hope unguessed by us. Unto the last we will not impugn God’s power. Now, my friends,” he added, turning toward the crowd, which circulated in the vault slowly, always following me, “let us show the Guard where our strength lies.”

In the gloom of the vast vault, above the howling of the dogs, the hymn was raised, old Bishop Alfred leading, in a voice singularly sweet, although in speech the tones were broken. All kneeled.

Afterward David spoke briefly. He reminded us of the brave traditions of martyrdom and its happy expectancy. We were going to face our fate together, strengthened by our companionship and in the knowledge that our death would create a revulsion of sentiment that would sweep Sanson from power and restore Christianity to the world. They cried out their approval, and there was no face but reflected David’s dauntless resolution. Then it was as if some soul of merriment swept over us all. I saw strangers embracing, there was clapping of hands, and the concluding hymn was shouted so joyously that a slit in the little window overhead was thrust back, and I saw the face of a sentinel stare in on us with something of superstitious awe.

The glass must have been sound-proof, like that which enclosed Lembken’s gardens, for, as the slit was pushed back, I heard the cries of the multitude in the courts above:

“Sanson! Sanson! Sanson!” they howled. “Out with the Christian morons! To the Rest Cure! The Rest Cure!”

The slit was pushed into place, cutting off all sound. Darkness was falling. The little light within the vault faded. Gradually the voices died away. Sometimes a hymn would be started, but mostly we sat silent now, and even the dogs ceased howling, and only stirred and whined at intervals. I heard the little woman’s children whimper, and fancied her motherly face bent over them as she quieted their fears. I only felt Elizabeth’s presence, and that of David, good, fatherly man, on whom I leaned more than he knew. At last the only sounds were the bishop’s mumbling voice, as he talked to himself, and the staccato tapping of his stick on the stone floors.

“They are coming,” I heard him say. “They are gathering up the Stockholm fleets. They will be here—”

“Who?” I burst out.

“The Russians,” he answered gently. “See them coming; big men, with bloody crosses on their breasts.”

A man near me leaped up and craned his neck, looking into the gloom. One or two cried out at the old bishop’s words, and some listened and whispered eagerly. Time passed. Most of the prisoners slept. I was still too sick and dizzy from my wound; I waited in a sort of apathy, and I seemed to see Esther within the opening cylinder, and Sanson, creeping like a foul beast of prey toward her.

I had been dozing. I started up at the sound of bolts being withdrawn, the heavy door at the far end of the vault was opened, and flashing lights shone in on us. The dogs, awakened, began to howl again. There was the stamping of heavy boots upon the stones, and a detachment of the Guard appeared before us.

They numbered seven. Six of them were privates, carrying solar torches and Ray rods; and in their midst stood a tall man with a black beard and a curved sword sheath that clanked on the stones. I recognized in him Mehemet, the Turkish commander.

Some, who had slept and mercifully forgotten all, sat up in bewilderment, others leaped up, thinking the hour had come. As we stood blinking at the lights, Mehemet spoke a few words, and the soldiers flashed their torches into our faces until they lighted on mine. Then Mehemet stepped forward and laid his hand on my shoulder, and drew me toward him; and the soldiers closed about us.

David sprang toward them.

“You shall not take him alone!” he cried. “Let us go with him, every one of us. We shall go to death together.”

And others sprang forward too, clamoring, beseeching. “Take us all!” they cried. “Take us together!”

Mehemet shrugged his shoulders and turned away. The captives flung themselves before the soldiers, who hesitated.

It was then that the old bishop, who had never ceased to mumble, I think, came quietly up to us.

“It is all right. Let him go,” he said gently. “He will come to no harm.”

“It is my orders,” said Mehemet, looking with respect at Bishop Alfred. “I have come for him alone.”

Half quieted by the bishop’s intervention, my fellow-prisoners ceased to offer forcible resistance. But they wept and prayed, and David grasped me by the hand.

“We shall be together in spirit, Arnold!” he cried. “God be with you. God be with you.” He flung his arms about me, and the guards, touched by the scene, permitted him to accompany me as far as the door. They picked their way carefully by the light of their torches, to avoid treading on the dogs, which crept to their feet or strained, yelping, upon their chains. At the door I found Elizabeth.

“We shall be with you in your hour, Arnold!” she said, embracing me and fighting back her sobs valiantly. “We shall all think of you tomorrow.”

The crowd dispersed. The last thing that I saw was the white, terrified, maternal face of the little woman, as she clutched her children to her breast, and, over her, the bishop’s pastoral staff, held up as if to shield her.

The door was closed behind me, and the soldiers shot the bolts home. In front of me was a flight of winding concrete stairs, dividing at a central space into two portions that ran right and left respectively. We took the left. I expected to emerge into the Vivisection Bureau, to see the eager students of the medical school, and Sanson, the presiding devil, there. But instead I saw a gate above me; a guard unlocked it. Then I found myself standing alone beside Mehemet, in the interior court between the Temple and the Airscouts’ Fortress, between the Science Wing and the Council Building.

High above me the bridges crossed, spanning the gulf in whose recess we stood. I saw once more the palms against the upreared crystal walls.

As I watched I saw the battleplanes take their flight once more, one by one, from the roof of the Airscouts’ Fortress, rising into the dark night like luminous balloons. In the distance London glowed like day.

Behind us, in the outer courts, a multitude was shrieking curses upon the Christians; and, for the first time, I heard threats against Lembken, and realized that Sanson’s plans were made for that coup which I was never to see.

“We are going to Sanson?” I asked Mehemet, nerving myself for his affirmative reply.

He spat. “The jackal!” he said. “Sooner would I become a Christian than serve such spawn. We are going to the People’s House.”

Evidently Sanson did not know that the main prop of his new house had fallen.