But with a fresh effort the old man lifted himself again.
"John," he cried, suddenly, "do you understand what I am saying? Do you understand that for a whole night you may be alone with the inviolable Scitsym? 'The Hope of the Universe, by whose Light alone the One and Only Prophet shall be made known unto the Watchers!'" He murmured the quotation in a low, rapt voice.
Again the younger man attempted to soothe him.
"Don't distress yourself!" he said, gravely. "I am here. You can trust me. Lie back and rest."
But his uncle's face was still excitedly perturbed; his pale eyes still possessed an unnatural brightness.
"Oh yes!" he said, sharply, "I trust you! I have trusted you. I have left a letter by which you will see that I have trusted you—and that your fidelity has been rewarded. But this is another matter. Can I trust you in this? Can I trust you as myself?" As he put the question a sweat of weakness and excitement broke out over his forehead.
But it was neither his wild appearance nor his question that suddenly sent the blood into John's face and suddenly set his heart bounding. It was the abrupt and unlooked-for justification of his own secret, treasured hope; the tacit acknowledgment of kinship and obligation made now by Andrew Henderson after seven unfruitful years. A mist rose before his sight and his mind swam. What was the mad creed of a dying man—of a dozen dying men—when the reward of his own long probation awaited him?
But the old man was set to his purpose. With shaking fingers he fumbled with two small objects that depended from the chain about his neck. And as he held them up, John saw by the glow of the lamp that one was a copy in miniature of the metal symbol that decorated the little chapel, the other a long, thin key.
As Henderson disentangled and raised these objects to the light, his eyes turned again upon his nephew.
"John," he said, tremulously, "I want you to swear to me by the Sign that you will not touch my body—nor anything on my body—till the Arch-Councillor comes! Swear, as you hope for your own happiness!" A wild illumination spread over his face; the unpleasant fanatical light showed again in his eyes.