for humanity?
Is there any difference in your mind, Maxendorf, between the people of
one country and the people of another?"

Maxendorf never faltered. His long narrow face was turned steadily
towards Maraton. His eyebrows were drawn together. He spoke slowly and
with great distinctness.

"I am for humanity," he declared. "Many of the people of my country I
have already freed. It is for the sufferers in other lands that I toil
in these days. If I am a patriot, it is because it is part of my
political outfit, and a political outfit is necessary to the man who
labours as I have laboured."

"So be it, then," Maraton decided. "I accept your words. Within a
month from this time, the revolution will be here. This land will be
laid waste, the terror will be brewed. I fear nothing, Maxendorf, but
as one man to another I have come to tell you, before I start north,
that if in your heart there is a single grain of deceit, if ever it
shall be made clear to me that I have been made the cat's-paw of what
you have called patriotism, if the people of this country have left a
breath of life in my body, I shall dedicate it to a purpose at which you
can guess."

"It is to threaten me that you have come?" Maxendorf asked quietly.

"Don't put it like that," Maraton replied. "These are just the words
which you yourself cannot fail to understand. Neither you nor I hold
life so dearly that the thought of losing it need make us quaver. I am
here only to say this one word--to tell you that the heavens have never
opened more surely to let out the lightning, than will your death be a
charge upon me if you should vary even a hair's-breadth from our
contract. If Maxendorf, the people's man, hides himself for only a
moment in the shadow of Maxendorf the politician, he shall die!"

Maxendorf held out his hand.

"Death," he said scornfully, "is not the greatest ill with which you
could threaten me, but let it be so. Humanity shall be our motto--no
other."

"You spar at one another," Selingman declared, "like a couple of
sophists. You are both men of the truth, you are both on your way to
the light. I give you my benediction. I watch over you--I, Selingman.
I am the witness of the joining of your hands. Unlock the gates without
fear, Maraton. Maxendorf will do his work."

CHAPTER XXXIV

About seven miles from London, Selingman gave the signal for the car to
pull up. They drew in by the side of the road and they all stood up in
their p