ll I
specially address myself? To Mr. James Turnbull. He has a scientific
mind."

Turnbull seemed to choke with sudden protest. The Master seemed only
to cough out of pure politeness and proceeded: "Mr. Turnbull will agree
with me," he said, "when I say that we long felt in scientific circles
that great harm was done by such a legend as that of the Crucifixion."

Turnbull growled something which was presumably assent.

The Master went on smoothly: "It was in vain for us to urge that the
incident was irrelevant; that there were many such fanatics, many such
executions. We were forced to take the thing thoroughly in hand,
to investigate it in the spirit of scientific history, and with the
assistance of Mr. Turnbull and others we were happy in being able to
announce that this alleged Crucifixion never occurred at all."

MacIan lifted his head and looked at the Master steadily, but Turnbull
did not look up.

"This, we found, was the only way with all superstitions," continued the
speaker; "it was necessary to deny them historically, and we have done
it with great success in the case of miracles and such things. Now
within our own time there arose an unfortunate fuss which threatened (as
Mr. Turnbull would say) to galvanize the corpse of Christianity into a
fictitious life--the alleged case of a Highland eccentric who wanted to
fight for the Virgin."

MacIan, quite white, made a step forward, but the speaker did not alter
his easy attitude or his flow of words. "Again we urged that this duel
was not to be admired, that it was a mere brawl, but the people were
ignorant and romantic. There were signs of treating this alleged
Highlander and his alleged opponent as heroes. We tried all other means
of arresting this reactionary hero worship. Working men who betted on
the duel were imprisoned for gambling. Working men who drank the
health of a duellist were imprisoned for drunkenness. But the popular
excitement about the alleged duel continued, and we had to fall back on
our old historical method. We investigated, on scientific principles,
the story of MacIan's challenge, and we are happy to be able to inform
you that the whole story of the attempted duel is a fable. There
never was any challenge. There never was any man named MacIan. It is a
melodramatic myth, like Calvary."

Not a soul moved save Turnbull, who lifted his head; yet there was the
sense of a silent explosion.

"The whole story of the MacIan challenge," we