Part 40

"Yes," she answered, simply.

The rain had almost ceased; Esmay made a movement to depart.

"There is nothing--no way in which I can serve you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing. I am going back to Arcadia House, but I shall have Nanna with me. There is nothing to fear."

He regarded her fixedly. "What can you do against Quinton Edge? He is the master--our master."

"I do not know; I have not thought. But I can watch and I can wait."

"Waiting! If that were all----"

"No, no! it could not be." She colored hotly, and he stopped, abashed.

"You must go now," she went on, gently. "Ulick, dear Ulick, I am sending you away, but, indeed, it is better so. And I shall remember--always."

He would have spoken again, but something in her face restrained him. He bent and kissed her reverently, as a brother might, and went out. And she, watching him go, found her vision suddenly blurred by a mist of tears. For there is something in every woman's heart that pleads a true man's cause, for all that she may not accept the gift he proffers.

Nanna had disappeared into the house some few minutes before; now she returned from her journey of discovery, wearing an expression of gravity quite new to her. "Come," she said, "I want to show you something."

She drew Esmay after her down the draughty passage that led to the offices of the long-since-deserted dwelling-house. There was a large apartment at the end of the passage--the kitchen, to judge from the character of the fittings. The room had been formerly lighted by electricity, and Nanna pointed out a lampwire whose free end was dangling in close proximity to a lead water-pipe. Underneath was a small heap of oil-soaked rags.

"You remember what we saw at the House of Power?" said Nanna, significantly.

Esmay examined the wire carefully. At the broken end the insulating fabric had been stripped off and the copper scraped clean and bright with a knife-blade.

"I found this on a nail in the passage," went on Nanna, and held out a bit of cloth that had been torn from a garment. It was of that peculiar weave worn only by the priests of the Shining One.

Esmay looked at it with troubled eyes. "What does it mean?" she asked, but Nanna only shook her head.

"Of course, I remember what happened at the temple," said Esmay, hesitatingly. "We saw him turn a handle, and the wire a hundred feet away spouted fire. If a hundred feet, why not half a mile?"

"It is a trap," asserted Nanna.

"But for what purpose?"

Nanna was not to be moved. "A trap," she persisted. "I do not understand, but I can feel what it is just as do the wolverine and the fox. Come away."

They walked down the street.

"What could Prosper hope to catch in such a snare--for whom could he have set it?" asked Esmay, putting into audible language the question over which both were puzzling. "Unless," she went on, thoughtfully--"unless this is only one of many."

Nanna nodded. "Dozens, hundreds of them, and scattered all over the city. It is the harvest-field of which he spoke."

As they passed a street corner that commanded a view of the Palace Road, Nanna caught Esmay by the arm and bade her look. Towering head and shoulders above the throng of idle men and gossiping women strode Prosper, the priest, and as he went he proclaimed the woe that must shortly come upon the city, a message to which none gave heed. But for all their mocking he would not forbear, and long after he had passed out of sight Esmay could distinguish the accents of his powerful voice rising above the din that strove to drown it:

"Yet three days, and Doom the Mighty--is fallen, is fallen!"

XXIII

THE RED LIGHT IN THE NORTH

It had been Constans's original plan to cross the river some miles above Croye, and so avoid attracting the attention of the Doomsmen should any of their parties be afield. The expedition would then move cautiously down the east bank in the hope of surprising the guard at the High Bridge, and so gain entrance to the city. But Piers Major, at the council of war that first evening, brought about a reconsideration.