Welland seated himself at the edge of the platform. He had no wish to be near Adair when the assassin fired his shot.
The crowd grew impatient, shouting and whistling, jeeringly for the Lieutenant-Governor. Suddenly a man arose, walked forward and held up his hand for silence.
A hush full of surprise—surprise affecting none more than Welland—fell on the crowd. The man was not Lancaster. It was Spirit-of-Iron.
This was an unanticipated change in the programme. In a corner below the platform Nita Oswald, seeking the 'scoop' of her life, made her pencil fly over her notebook.
To the crowd, this man seemed to have arisen from the grave. They knew how close to death he had recently been. And his face was ghastly, while his clothes hung on him. It was evident that he was making a tremendous effort in attending the meeting at all. Grudging admiration seized them. They loved courage. Moreover, the man's personality was already gripping them, making them his.
To Hector, this was the supreme moment of his life, to which he had looked forward for months. He felt that everything depended on him in this crisis. If ever he had swayed men, cowed men, he must sway and cow them now, though he drooped with fatigue.
He had not forgotten the assassin. That unknown devil lurked always at the back of his mind. But he had passed the stage when he really cared whether the shot was fired or not, so long as he could master this immense mob—so immense that it seemed illimitable. Fortunately, he did not feel as if he faced this immensity, this monster stretching away and away into the darkness, alone. He felt—a wonderful feeling—that the strength of all Canada, for whom he was enduring this thing, was behind him, helping him to dominate, trusting him, looking to him—and behind Canada, the Empire——
So in the silence, he began. He had a strange sensation that someone else, far mightier than he, was speaking.
"Men, you are here tonight, believing yourselves victims of a corrupt administration, to present a petition to the Lieutenant-Governor, which, among other things, calls for a general clean-up, for Mr. Lancaster's resignation and for a transference of the power held by the Dominion Government to yourselves. This is the programme. I want to tell you that most of you have been deceived."
Welland felt a sudden chill. The crowd stirred, muttering, with an occasional shout of angry dissent—stirred and was still again.