But the Prophet reassured him by a gesture. It seemed that he was exalted by some emotion, lifted above his surroundings by some invisible power.
"Put yourselves in this boy's place!" he cried. "Was there ever a position so intensely human? The thing he had striven for—the thing he needed inordinately—had been wrenched from him by a band of people who, in his eyes, were either fools or knaves. What would you have done in his position? What would have been your impulse? What your instinct? If I know anything of human nature, it would have been the same as his—precisely, accurately the same as his!
"He had known for years of this sect to which his master belonged; and for years he had held it in contempt. In his normal, youthful eyes, the idea of a creed that denied the high, simple theory of Christianity, and awaited the coming of a mythical Prophet was a subject for healthy scorn. And now suddenly it was forced upon his understanding that this anæmic sect—this mystical, anticipated Prophet—were his rivals—the despoilers of his private intimate hopes.
"Such a knowledge has power to work a miracle; and in one single night it changed this boy into a man. Embittered, hopeless, stranded, inspiration came to him. He conceived the tremendous idea of entering upon a new fight—a second quest of the great inheritance. He conceived the idea; and standing, as it were, upon a different plane of life, he saw—"
But the Prophet got no further. With a gesture of violent excitement, Bale-Corphew rose; at the same instant the Precursor sprang to his feet and stood in a defensive attitude before the Throne.
The whole scene was enacted in a second. Enid, grasping its full meaning, turned very white and dropped back into her seat, while the whole congregation strained forward in unanimous amazement and curiosity.
And then, for the first time, the hot, angry glance of Bale-Corphew met that of the Prophet. He glared at him for one moment in speechless rage, then he turned to the people.
"Mystics!" he cried, in a choked voice. "In accordance with a solemn duty, I—I proclaim this man to be—"
But before he could proceed the Precursor interrupted.
"People! Mystics!" he cried, raising his penetrating voice. "Is this right? Is this permissible?"