He threw away the end of his cigar and rose.
“Come back in three days, Jack. You’ll see it all then. I needn’t explain it now.”
The events of the following two days filled me with uneasiness; and I began to fear that for once Nordenholt had erred in his calculations. The tumult and agitation centring around the figure of the revivalist increased; his preaching became more and more menacing; and it seemed to me that he had been allowed too much rope. By this time he was quite frankly attacking the whole scheme of the Nitrogen Area as an act of impiety which would call down the wrath of the Divinity in the immediate future. And mingled with these cursings he poured forth his prophecies, which grew hourly more detailed. He and his Elect would ascend into the sky at noon, he declared; and that all men might see this come about, he proposed to take his stand by the Roberts’ statue in Kelvingrove Park, from which eminence he would be visible to the assembled crowds.
Rumours ran through the Area, growing wilder and yet more wild as they passed from lip to lip. Even the most unimaginative of the population felt the strange electric power which seemed to flow out from the revivalist; and the tales of his doings were magnified and distorted out of all semblance of reality. Just as Nordenholt had predicted, all the formless unrest of the Area crystallised round the personality of the preacher and took shape and substance. Work was abandoned by the greater part of the Area labour; and the factories, usually thronged by shift after shift, remained almost untenanted during those two days in which the populace awaited the promised miracle.
Meanwhile the followers of the revivalist redoubled their efforts and their conduct grew less and less restrained. The labourers who remained at work were assaulted by bands of these fanatics, and driven from the doors of the factories. Order seemed to have vanished from the Area; for I found that Nordenholt had withdrawn the Labour Defence Force entirely from the streets, allowing the madmen to do their will. It seemed as though the Area were being permitted to relapse into chaos.
The uninterrupted preaching of the revivalist had wrought the whole population into a state of strained expectation. Even those who scoffed at his claims were affected by the atmosphere of the time; and there was in most minds an uneasy questioning: “Suppose that it should all be true?”
At half-past eleven, I went to Nordenholt’s office as I had promised. He was alone, seated at his huge desk. The usual mass of papers had been cleared away and I noticed that their place had been taken by a small piece of apparatus like a telephone in some respects and an ordinary electric bell-push on a wooden stand. Temporary wires ran from these to the window.
“Come in, Jack. You’re just in time for the curtain.”