rectly to the people.

"Is it that you seek a deliverer and find none? But how shall the
Shining One keep faith with you who turn your feet away from his
sanctuary and bring no victims to his altars? Has he not called to you
daily, and have you not stopped your ears? And now that ye call in turn,
shall he indeed hear? Already is your woe come upon you, children of
Doom. Look and listen!"

A flash of lightning accompanied the priest's last words and the crash
of the thunder came almost simultaneously. The obscurity was momentarily
increasing, and the gigantic, nimbus cloud-band now reached far beyond
the zenith, its slate-blue edges contrasting vividly with the
green-and-saffron tints of the narrow strip of clear sky that still
remained visible. And in another moment that, too, had disappeared; such
was the darkness that a man could not see his neighbor's face, though
their elbows might be touching.

"To your holes and dens!" shouted the priest, now quite beside himself
in his fanatical exaltation. "He speaks again, he speaks again! Woe, woe
to the city of Doom!" Once more the firmament seemed cleft in twain, and
the earth trembled under the reverberations of the tremendous electrical
discharges. The effect upon the overwrought nerves of the throng was
instantaneous; as one man the crowd turned and made for the exits from
the Citadel Square. Even the personal attendants upon Dom Gillian were
affected by the panic, and leaped over the guard-rails of the platform
into the mass of humanity below. In half a score of minutes the enormous
square was deserted save for a few infirm and crippled stragglers, and
Constans himself thought it prudent to withdraw to the shelter of one of
the guard-huts from whose doorway he could still watch the progress of
events.

Only Prosper, the priest, remained in the open, standing there with
uplifted hands and gazing steadfastly into the sable vault above him.
Quinton Edge called to him, but he answered not. Then the Doomsman,
leaning far over the balustrade of the platform, struck the priest
sharply on the shoulder with his truncheon of office.

"Come up here and help me with the Lord Keeper. These dogs have all
sought their kennels and left us to shift for ourselves."

Gathering up his long, black robe, Prosper ascended the steps of the
platform and passed to the Lord Keeper's side. He looked eagerly into
Dom Gillian's eyes, but the old man's face might have been a mask in its
impassi