light leaped
into being--that strong, sweet, familiar light, generated by the great
engines underground that, in the passion of that catastrophic day, all
men had forgotten; and in a moment all changed from a mob of phantoms
and shapes into a pitiless reality of life and death.

Before her moved a great rood, with a figure upon it, of which one arm
hung from the nailed hand, swinging as it went; an embroidery streamed
behind with the swiftness of the motion.

And next after it came the naked body of a child, impaled, white and
ruddy, the head fallen upon the breast, and the arms, too, dangling and
turning.

And next the figure of a man, hanging by the neck, dressed, it seemed,
in a kind of black gown and cape, with its black-capped head twisting
from the twisting rope.

II

The same night Oliver Brand came home about an hour before midnight.

For himself, what he had heard and seen that day was still too vivid and
too imminent for him to judge of it coolly. He had seen, from his
windows in Whitehall, Parliament Square filled with a mob the like of
which had not been known in England since the days of Christianity--a
mob full of a fury that could scarcely draw its origin except from
sources beyond the reach of sense. Thrice during the hours that followed
the publication of the Catholic plot and the outbreak of mob-law he had
communicated with the Prime Minister asking whether nothing could be
done to allay the tumult; and on both occasions he had received the
doubtful answer that what could be done would be done, that force was
inadmissible at present; but that the police were doing all that was
possible.

As regarded the despatch of the volors to Rome, he had assented by
silence, as had the rest of the Council. That was, Snowford had said, a
judicial punitive act, regrettable but necessary. Peace, in this
instance, could not be secured except on terms of war--or rather, since
war was obsolete--by the sternness of justice. These Catholics had shown
themselves the avowed enemies of society; very well, then society must
defend itself, at least this once. Man was still human. And Oliver had
listened and said nothing.

As he passed in one of the Government volors over London on his way
home, he had caught more than one glimpse of what was proceeding beneath
him. The streets were as bright as day, shadowless and clear in the
white light, and every roadway was a crawling serpent. From beneath rose
up a stead