T hree 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!"