“But that doesn’t explain why I am here now,” Johnny suggested.
“Oh! That.” Drew sat up. “There’s a natural comradeship between certain people. If you are one of the parties you know it at once. I felt sort of related to you. Liked the way your muscles bulged beneath your clothes. You had an air of open spaces about you. I wanted to know you. So here you are. Regret it?”
“Not a bit.”
“Nor I.”
So they talked. And as Drew Lane’s voice came to him in a slow and steady murmur Johnny felt a kindred spirit laying hold of his very soul. More than once, too, he felt an all but irresistible impulse to leap to his feet and dash from the room, for a steady, indistinct but unmistakable still small voice was saying to him: “This man goes into many dangers. If you travel with him he will lead you into great peril. Once you have followed you cannot turn back. Such is the spirit of youth, faith, romance, and love for the human race. Test the steel of your soul well. If you are in the least afraid it were better that you turn back now.” Johnny listened and humbly vowed to follow this or any other leader whose purpose was right and whose heart was true.
An hour passed. At last Drew Lane rose, stepped across the room and pressed a button to set a square of light dimly glowing.
“Like a little music?” he asked.
Johnny did not reply, but waiting, heard as in a dream the faint, plaintive notes of a violin creeping into the room.
It rose louder and louder. Then of a sudden, quite without warning, it was broken in upon by a terrible, jarring WHONG!
Clang! Clang! Clang! sounded a brazen gong. Then a voice: