“This,” said the little man in grey to Sargon, “is Mr. Jordan. He’s going to show you just where you have to go and just what you have to do.”
Immediately, instinctively, Sargon disliked Mr. Jordan. But he stood up obediently because his idea of submission to the Power seemed in some way to overlap and include this new coercion. Mr. Jordan produced a voice of flat, oily, insincere amiability. “You come along, Old Chap, with me,” he said. “We’ll make you comfortable all right ’fyou don’t give no trouble.”
They went round a corner and up a cheerless stone staircase that turned back on itself; they came to a landing and double doors with glass panes in them that opened upon a very long, dark passage lit by a single very remote light. And suddenly it appeared to Sargon that behind him and already distant lay that outer world of freedom, the streets and the lights, the coming and going of people and things, the endless chance encounters, the events and the spectacle of life to which the Power had sent him, and before him were dark and narrow and dreadful experiences. Why should he turn his back thus voluntarily on the great outer world he had come to save? Was this again only another mistake he was making? He took a step or so away from Jordan and faced him.
“No,” he said. “I do not want to go further into this place. I do not wish it. Let me return. I have disciples to call and many things to do.”
The full moon of Jordan’s face displayed incredulous astonishment that passed into fierceness. “Wot?” he said.
He left a tremendous pause after “Wot” and then spoke very rapidly. “None of your tricks ’ere, you thundering old Bastard.” With a swift movement his huge, raw, red hand gripped Sargon by the upper arm. His thin lips were retracted to show his teeth; his eyes seemed popping out. He gripped not to hold but to pinch and compress and injure, and he dug his fingers in between muscle and bone, so that Sargon stared at him with dilated eyes and uttered a sharp, involuntary cry of pain.
The grip relaxed from the acutely painful to the merely uncomfortable, and the big face came down close to Sargon’s. It was manifest that Mr. Jordan had been regaling himself on cheese and cocoa. “Don’t you try it on, you Old Fool! Don’t you blooming well try it on. Whatever it is, don’t you try it on ’ere. You’re right enough to understand what I say. See? You do exactly wot you’re told ’ere. You do exactly wot you’re told. You do your best to avoid givin’ trouble and I’ll do my best ditto. But if you start doin’ tricks—Gawd ’elp you! See?”
And he crushed the arm again.
“Understan’?”
The blue eyes seemed to assent.