XXXI
“Heis coming now,” the doctor whispered. “I will leave you for a little while so that you may talk without interruption.” And the doctor passed out noiselessly.
Silence had fallen again at the other end of the long room. Brandon was sensible of a faint stir among the dim figures round the fire. And then his heart leaped to his throat, his veins seemed to run with flame as there emerged and came slowly toward him an outline wholly different from that of the man he expected to see. John Smith—if John Smith it was!—had let his hair grow long, he had acquired a beard, and he wore a loose robe tied round his middle by a cord.
The wide-pupiled eyes and the strange pallor of the face struck with vivid intensity through the ghostly half-light of the room.
The shock of this appearance was like a knife in Brandon’s flesh.
“Dear friend”—even the voice had changed—“you have heard great argument. And here is the matterof it.” A manuscript bound in brown paper was placed in Brandon’s hands. “I charge you in the name of humanity to give this to the world with the Father’s love.”
A shiver of strange joy passed through the frame of the stricken man. The simple words pierced to a hidden spring. Forces long pent were released within him, new light, new power, seemed to suffuse him. Enfolded by his presence, he was conscious of a kind of rapture which was like a rebirth. He felt the caress of lips on his forehead, the great eyes sank into him. And then came the voice, familiar and yet strange, “Faithful servant, if you believe in me rise from your bed and walk.”
The words were as a fire. In the same tone of gentleness they were repeated, and Brandon felt the icy touch of a hand upon his cheek. His heart seemed to break and thrill with joy, as, overborne by an anguish of feeling, he suddenly rose from his chair and cast himself at the feet of him in whose presence he was.
“Master!” he cried. “Master!”