‘The man swept past like the spirit of a storm in imaginative poetry----’ began the tutor, hunting through his thoughts for adequate description, then stopped as he saw that his companion had risen from his chair and begun to pace the floor. The Pasteur paused a moment beside him, hands thrust deep into his pockets, head bent down, and shoulders forward. For twenty seconds he stared into his visitor’s face intently, as though he would force into him the thought in his own mind. His features seemed working visibly, yet behind a mask of strong control. ‘Don’t you see what it is? Don’t you see?’ he said in a lower, deeper tone. ‘_They knew._ Even from a distance they were aware of his coming. He is one of themselves.’ And he straightened up again. ‘He belongs to them.’ ‘One of them? One of the wind-and-fire lot?’ the tutor stammered. The restless little man returned to his chair opposite, full of suppressed and vigorous movement, as though he were strung on springs. ‘He’s _of_ them,’ he continued, ‘but in a peculiar and particular sense. More than merely a possible recruit, his empty organism would provide the very link they need, the perfect conduit.’ He watched his companion’s face with careful keenness. ‘In the country where I first experienced this marvellous thing,’ he added significantly, ‘he would have been set apart as the offering, the sacrifice, as they call it there. The tribe would have chosen him with honour. He would have been the special bait to attract.’ ‘Death?’ whispered the other. But Leysin shook his head. ‘In the end, perhaps,’ he replied darkly, ‘for the vessel might be torn and shattered. But at first charged to the brim and crammed with energy--with transformed vitality they could draw into themselves through him. A monster, if you will, but to them a deity; and superhuman, in our little sense, most certainly.’ Then Hendricks faltered inwardly and turned away. No words came to him at the moment. In silence the minds of the two men, one a religious, the other a secular teacher, and each with a burden of responsibility to the race, kept pace together without speech. The religious, however, outstripped the pedagogue. What he next said seemed a little disconnected with what had preceded it, although Hendricks caught the drift easily enough--and shuddered. ‘An organism needing heat,’ observed Leysin calmly, ‘can absorb without danger what would destroy a normal person. Alcohol, again, neither injures nor intoxicates--up to a given point--the system that really requires it.’ The tutor, perplexed and sorely tempted, felt that he drifted with a tide he found it difficult to stem. ‘Up to a point,’ he repeated. ‘That’s true, of course.’ ‘Up to a given point,’ echoed the other, with significance that made his voice sound solemn. ‘Then rescue--in the nick of time.’