The politician was very, very happy. He saw the enemy of a lifetime dead at his feet, the revolution a success and the name of Superintendent Adair smirched and blotted, as representing one who had slept at his post and betrayed the people. And then he saw the revolution crushed and himself risen to heights as yet untouched.
At ten to eight he walked over to join the Lieutenant-Governor, so that he might sit on the platform and witness Hector's downfall.
Altogether, with his treachery to the Black Elk authorities and his treachery to Greasy Jones, Welland was not unqualified for the stigma, 'traitor.'
V
In the main square of Discovery City a vast crowd, representing most of the inhabitants of Black Elk, was assembled—a wild, undisciplined crowd, a heaping shovelful from the rubbish-heap of the whole wide world. For days it had been gathering together, its outward purpose to force Lancaster's resignation, the real purpose of its leaders to launch revolution. They did not contemplate bloodshed. But they were ready for it.
From a platform at one end of the square the Lieutenant-Governor and the officer commanding the Mounted Police—the one man they really feared—were to speak. Torches and lanterns around it threw it into a fierce light and illuminated the Union Jack which flapped idly from a pole above. The light fell also on the faces of the nearest men and was at last lost in the great heart of the crowd. Overhead the aurora surged and quivered, advanced and retired, staging marvellous pageantry in the intense darkness and seeming to rustle and to whisper. There was an awful atmosphere in the scene, as though something tremendous were about to happen.
It was eight o'clock.
A thunderous roar burst suddenly from the crowd, burst and rolled back and forth, like the roar of a fitful wind over the sea. Acclamation, surprise, above all, hostility, were in that strange cry.
The Lieutenant-Governor's party had appeared on the platform.
Lancaster brought no escort with him. None of the Mounted Police fringed the outskirts of the crowd. But with Lancaster was Major Adair.