that they should so remain. So very simple! Let but the
heavens open, swallowing these men and their aeroplanes--and then
close again. Let him have his slaves once more, restored to life and
well.

There was no one else with whom he had ever needed: to treat or
bargain.

He doubted only whether he had made his bribe big enough. God had His
price, of course. God was made in man's image, so it had been said: He
must have His price. And the price would be rare--no cathedral whose
building consumed many years, no pyramid constructed by ten thousand
workmen, would be like this cathedral, this pyramid.

He paused here. That was his proposition. Everything would be up to
specifications, and there was nothing vulgar in his assertion that it
would be cheap at the price. He implied that Providence could take it
or leave it.

As he approached the end his sentences became broken, became short and
uncertain, and his body seemed tense, seemed strained to catch the
slightest pressure or whisper of life in the spaces around him. His
hair had turned gradually white as he talked, and now he lifted his
head high to the heavens like a prophet of old--magnificently mad.

Then, as John stared in giddy fascination, it seemed to him that a
curious phenomenon took place somewhere around him. It was as though
the sky had darkened for an instant, as though there had been a sudden
murmur in a gust of wind, a sound of far-away trumpets, a sighing like
the rustle of a great silken robe--for a time the whole of nature
round about partook of this darkness; the birds' song ceased; the
trees were still, and far over the mountain there was a mutter of
dull, menacing thunder.

That was all. The wind died along the tall grasses of the valley. The
dawn and the day resumed their place in a time, and the risen sun sent
hot waves of yellow mist that made its path bright before it. The
leaves laughed in the sun, and their laughter shook until each bough
was like a girl's school in fairyland. God had refused to accept the
bribe.

For another moment John, watched the triumph of the day. Then,
turning, he saw a flutter of brown down by the lake, then another
flutter, then another, like the dance of golden angels alighting from
the clouds. The aeroplanes had come to earth.

John slid off the boulder and ran down the side of the mountain to the
clump of trees, where the two girls were awake and waiting for him.
Kismine sprang to her feet, the jewels in he