ll also were perhaps twenty
other persons apparently listening to the President or waiting
their turn. There were tall doors at the end of the hall, closed
and guarded by police, and in the middle of each of the long
sides two other doors, also closed, communicating with other
rooms and passages, in one of which the priest had waited just
now until the Council could see him.

Except for the rapid, heavy voice of the President the hall was
very quiet, and from the very silence and motionlessness of those
present there exhaled a certain air of tenseness. It would have
been impossible for any intelligent person not to notice it, and
for the priest, with his nerves strung, as they now were, to an
extreme pitch of sensitiveness and attention, the atmosphere was
overwhelmingly significant. Of what it signified he had no idea,
beyond the knowledge he already possessed--that the hours were
running out, and that midnight would see a decisive event which,
though it must mean ultimately the ruin of every person present,
might, for all that, change the line of the world's development.
A protest so desperate as this could not but have a tremendous
effect upon human sentiment. He had caught a glimpse an hour before,
as he whirled through the streets, far up against the luminous slay
westwards, of a string of floating specks, which he knew to be the
guard-boats, strung out now, night and day, in a vast circle round
the city. At midnight they would surely move. . . .

Dark had already fallen outside, but the hall was as light as day
with the hidden electric burners above the cornices, and he could
see not only the faces, but the very expressions that
characterized them. One thing at least was common to them all--a
silent, fierce excitement. . . .

It would be about ten minutes before the priest's turn came to
face the Council. It seemed that the member to whom the
President was speaking was not satisfied, and question and
answer, all in rapid, unintelligible German, went on without
intermission. Once or twice there was a murmur of applause, and
more than once the President beat his hand heavily and
emphatically upon the desk before him to enforce his point. The
priest guessed that the unanimity was not perhaps as perfect as
the world had been given to believe. However, guessing was
useless. The President leaned back at last, and Hardy stepped
forward to his chair and whispered. The President nodded, and
the next moment, at a sign