"The night of nights!" he exclaimed. "To have lived to witness it!" His face glowed with a sudden enthusiasm; and freeing her fingers, he lifted up his right hand. "'He shall walk into your midst—and sit above you as a King!'" he quoted, in a loud voice. Then remembering his companion, he lowered his tone.
"Everything is in readiness," he added, more soberly. "The Precursor still unceasingly prophesies the Advent. Come with me into the Place. The Gathering is all but assembled." Laying his large hand upon her arm, he led her forward unresistingly through the groups of men and women, and onward down a long corridor to where a curtain hid an arched doorway.
For a moment they paused outside this door, and the man—still laboring under some strange excitement—again raised his hand:
"Come!" he cried. "And before we leave the Place, may the Hope of the Universe be fulfilled!" Lifting the curtain, he ushered her through the door.
The room—or chapel—into which they stepped was large and lofty, covered on floor and walls with sections of marble alternately black and white; overhead swung a huge octagonal symbol in jewelled and polished metal; and at the end farthest from the door a haze of incense clouded what appeared to be an altar.
A concourse of people filled every corner of this vast room; and from the crouched or upright figures rose a continuous, inaudible murmuring.
Still guiding his companion, the massively built man forced a way between the closely packed figures. But, half-way up the room, the woman paused and glanced at him.
"This will do," she whispered. "Not any nearer, please. Not any nearer."
His only answer was to lay his hand upon her arm, and by a persistent pressure to draw her onward up the narrow aisle. Reaching the railed-in space about which the incense hung, he paused in his own turn and motioned her towards the foremost row of seats, from which the majority of the gathering seemed to hold aloof.
With a quick, nervous gesture she deprecated the suggestion. "No! No!" she murmured. "Let me sit behind. Please let me sit behind."