e worn only by the priests of the Shining One.

Esmay looked at it with troubled eyes. "What does it mean?" she asked,
but Nanna only shook her head.

"Of course, I remember what happened at the temple," said Esmay,
hesitatingly. "We saw him turn a handle, and the wire a hundred feet
away spouted fire. If a hundred feet, why not half a mile?"

"It is a trap," asserted Nanna.

"But for what purpose?"

Nanna was not to be moved. "A trap," she persisted. "I do not
understand, but I can feel what it is just as do the wolverine and the
fox. Come away."

They walked down the street.

"What could Prosper hope to catch in such a snare--for whom could he have
set it?" asked Esmay, putting into audible language the question over which
both were puzzling. "Unless," she went on, thoughtfully--"unless this is
only one of many."

Nanna nodded. "Dozens, hundreds of them, and scattered all over the
city. It is the harvest-field of which he spoke."

As they passed a street corner that commanded a view of the Palace Road,
Nanna caught Esmay by the arm and bade her look. Towering head and
shoulders above the throng of idle men and gossiping women strode
Prosper, the priest, and as he went he proclaimed the woe that must
shortly come upon the city, a message to which none gave heed. But for
all their mocking he would not forbear, and long after he had passed out
of sight Esmay could distinguish the accents of his powerful voice
rising above the din that strove to drown it:

"Yet three days, and Doom the Mighty--is fallen, is fallen!"

XXIII

THE RED LIGHT IN THE NORTH

It had been Constans's original plan to cross the river some miles above
Croye, and so avoid attracting the attention of the Doomsmen should any
of their parties be afield. The expedition would then move cautiously
down the east bank in the hope of surprising the guard at the High
Bridge, and so gain entrance to the city. But Piers Major, at the
council of war that first evening, brought about a reconsideration.

"Against the citadel," he said, shrewdly, "we should rather choose to
direct an unexpected blow. The bridge may be carried by a rush, but not
so the stone walls that guard the heart of Doom. In that assault a man's
life must be paid for each rung gained on the scaling-ladders. We have
no batteries with which to hammer at the gate-hinges, and as for a
siege--well, it is weary work starving out rats whose fortress is a
granary in itself. Let