CHAPTER XII.
THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH.
“Will you come into my workroom, Mr. Hammond? It is a kind of sanctum to me as well as a workroom, and I always feel that I can talk freer there than anywhere else.”
It was the Jew, Abraham Cohen, who said these words. His visitor was Tom Hammond. It was the morning after that Tom Hammond had been troubled about “Long Odds” and its mysterious subject.
Jew and Gentile had had a few moments’ general talk in the sitting-room downstairs, but Cohen wanted to see his visitor alone—to be where nothing should interrupt their conversation.
Tom Hammond’s first vision of Cohen’s workroom amazed him. As we have seen before, the apartment was a large one, and, besides being a workroom, partook of the character of a study, den, sanctum—anything of that order that best pleases the reader.
But it was the finished work which chiefly arrested the attention of Tom Hammond, and in wondering tones he cried: “It is all so exquisitely wrought and fashioned! But what can it be for?”
Cohen searched his visitor’s face with his deep grave eyes.
“Will you give me your word, Mr. Hammond,” he asked, “that you will hold in strictest confidence the fact that this work is here in this place, if I tell you what it is for?”
“I do give you my word of honour, Mr. Cohen.” As he spoke, Tom Hammond held forth his hand. The Jew grasped the hand, there was an exchange of grips; then, as their clasp parted, the Jew said:
“I do not wish to bind you to any secrecy as to the fact that such work as this is being performed in England, but only that you should preserve the secret of the whereabouts of the work and workers.” With a sudden glow of pride—it flashed in his eyes, it rang in his tones—he cried, “This work is for the New Temple!”