"Yes, yes, I am ready," answered Verrill. "Look," he exclaimed, pointing to the windows. "Look—it is morning."
Low in the east, the dawn was rising over the city. A new day was coming; the stars were paling, the night was over.
"That is true," said Verrill's new friend. "Another day is coming. It is time we went out to meet it."
They rose and passed down the length of the Banquet Hall. He who had called himself the great Physician, the Servant of the Humble, the Master of Kings, the Prince of Masqueraders, held open the door for Verrill to pass. But when the man had gone out, the Prince paused a moment, and looked back upon the deserted Banquet Hall, lit partly by the steady electrics, partly by the pale light of morning, that now began with ever-increasing radiance to stream through the eastern windows. Then he stretched forth his hand and laid his touch upon a button in the wall. Instantly the lights sank, vanished; for a moment the hall seemed dark.
He went out quietly, shutting the door behind him.
* * * * *
And the Banquet Hall remained deserted, lonely, empty, yet it was neither dark nor lifeless. Stronger and stronger grew the flood of light that burned roseate toward the zenith as the sun came up. It penetrated to every corner of the room, and the drops of wine left in the bottom of the glasses flashed like jewels in the radiance. From without, from the city's streets, came the murmur of increasing activity. Through the night it had droned on, like the low-pitched diapason of some vast organ, but now as the sun rose, it swelled in volume. Louder it grew and ever louder. Its sound-waves beat upon the windows of the hall. They invaded the hall itself.
It was the symphony of energy, the vast orchestration of force, the pæan of an indestructible life, coeval with the centuries, renascent, ordained, eternal.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THIRD CIRCLE ***