"Mystics!" he cried, "there is no time for preamble or delay. As the Arch-Mystic says, you must have truth! Perhaps there is no need to tell you that the history I have just related to you has an imminent bearing upon your lives and mine. You probably know, without my telling, that the boy of my story and I are one and the same person; that the fanatic sect, for which I was made a beggar, is your own sect—the sect of the Mystics. But so it is. On a wild, dark night ten years ago I learned that the money which should have been mine—the money which should have been the recompense for my mother's hard life—had been given to you. Given for the use of a Prophet in whose coming you believed!
"My feelings on that night were the criminal feelings that underlie all civilization. I had only one desire—to destroy—to be avenged. My uncle, Andrew Henderson, was an Arch-Mystic of your sect; and on the night he died, your sacred Scitsym was in his house!"
The congregation thrilled, and the blind Arch-Councillor turned and clutched Bale-Corphew's arm.
"My first impulse was to destroy that book. Look at it, look at it!" He pointed to the lectern. "Ten years ago, I knelt before a fire with its pages in my hand, and black thoughts of revenge in my heart. But the devil of temptation lurks in strange places. In the very act of destruction, an inspiration came to me. A man was expected! A Prophet was expected! And in the pages of the Scitsym were contained the attributes, the secret signs, the manifold ways in which he was to make good his claim.
"I come of an obstinate stock—of a stock that in the past has overcome many obstacles. That night I copied out the whole of your Scitsym, and afterwards, as soon as I reasonably could, I left Scotland.
"I went at once to my mother; I told her that, according to the disposition of my uncle's will, I was to inherit his fortune in ten years' time, and that in the interval I was to fit myself for wealth by profound study. It was the first time in all my life that I had lied to her!
"But to come to the end, your Prophet was to be a student of Eastern lore. With this knowledge in my mind, I started with my mother for the East. What has happened since then is immaterial. My second probation has been as hard as my first. But I accomplished two things. I fitted myself mentally and physically for the part I was going to play, and I made one stanch, wholly disinterested friend!" With a gesture of grave affection, he indicated the Precursor.
In the opportunity that the slight pause gave, Bale-Corphew sprang forward and, resting his hands upon the Sanctuary railing, faced the congregation.
"People!" he cried, hoarsely, "be not deceived! This man pretends to tell you what he is. He is blinding you—weaving a bandage of specious words across your eyes. But I will undeceive you. I will tear the bandage—" He hesitated, stammered, paused.
With a movement full of fire, full of authority, the Prophet stepped from the Throne.