d sweated, with every muscle in strain, his face
working in convulsions, his lungs beating heaven with sound. He outdid
the Trojan hero in the leaps across the platform, the sinuous gestures,
the rendings of the enemy; until that moment when he drew the bars of
hell for the unrepentant, and flung Rome into the abyss. This effective
performance, inartistic and almost grotesque, never fell to the level of
the ridiculous, for native power was strong in the man. The peroration
raised Livingstone to the skies, chained Sullivan in the lowest depths
of the Inferno, and introduced as a terrible example a brand just
rescued from the burning.

"Study her, observe her," said Grahame. "These brands have had curious
burnings."

She spoke with ease, a little woman in widow's weeds, coquettishly
displaying silken brown hair under the ruching of a demure bonnet.
Taking her own account--"Which some reporter wrote for her no doubt,"
Grahame commented--she had been a sinner, a slave of Rome, a castaway
bound hand and foot to degrading superstition, until rescued by the
noblest of men and led by spirit into the great work of rescuing others
from the grinding slavery of the Church of Rome. Very tenderly she
appealed to the audience to help her. The prayers of the saints were
about to be answered. God had raised up a leader who would strike the
shackles off the limbs of the children. The leader, of course, was Mayor
Livingstone.

"You see how the spirit works," said Grahame.

Then came an interruption. The Brand introduced a girl of twelve as an
illustration of her work of rescue among the dreadful hirelings of Rome.
A feeble and ragged woman in the audience rose and cried out that the
child was her lost Ellen. The little girl made a leap from the platform
but was caught dexterously by the Brand and flung behind the scenes. A
stout woman shook her fist in the Brand's face and called her out of her
name; and also gave the evangelist a slap in the stomach which taught
him a new kind of convulsion. His aids fell upon the stout woman, the
tough men of the audience fell upon the aids, the mother of Ellen began
shrieking, and some respectable people ran to the door to call the
police. A single policeman entered cooly, and laid about him with his
stick so as to hit the evangelists with frequency. For a few minutes all
things turned to dust, confusion, and bad language. The policeman
restored order, dismissed Ellen with her mother, calmed the st