Gordon stepped backward and bent slowly over the cat. She did not look very bright, but she was too shrewd for that movement.
The crowd watched breathlessly. He grasped at her.
She sprang quickly to one side, bowed her back, bushed her tail, and scampered across the platform crying:
“Pist! pist!” and ran up the column that supported the end of the gallery.
The preacher’s empty hand struck the bare floor, and the crowd was convulsed.
A young man sitting in the gallery near the column caught the cat as she climbed over the rail, ran to a window and was about to throw her down to the pavement twenty feet below.
Gordon lifted his hand and cried:
“Don’t do that, young man—don’t hurt her; bring her here.”
It had, suddenly occurred to the preacher as he watched Van Meter bending low in his pew overcome with laughter, that he had stooped to this contemptible trick to defeat him and make the solemnest hour of life ridiculous. He knew the Deacon had come to the church earlier than usual. He was sure he had done it.
A curious smile began to play about his lips, and a cold glitter came into his steel-gray eyes.