He waited two full minutes and more for an answer; then, as none was audible, he said another thing. His eyes were so intent upon the tutor’s that the latter raised his own unwillingly, and understood thus all that lay behind the pregnant little sentence. ‘With a number it would not be possible, but with an individual it could be done. Brim the empty vessel first. Then rescue--in the nick of time! Regeneration!’ IV In the Englishman’s mind there came a crash, as though something fell. There was dust, confusion, noise. Moral platitudes shouted at conventional admonitions. Warnings laughed and copy-book maxims shrivelled up. Above the lot, rising with a touch of grandeur, stood the pulpit figure of the little Pasteur, his big face shining clear through all the turmoil, strength and vision in the flaming eyes--a commanding outline with spiritual audacity in his heart. And Hendricks saw then that the man himself was standing erect in the centre of the room, one finger raised to command attention--listening. Some considerable interval must have passed while he struggled with his inner confusion. Leysin stood, intently listening, his big head throwing a grotesque shadow on wall and ceiling. ‘Hark!’ he exclaimed, half whispering. ‘Do you hear that? Listen.’ A deep sound, confused and roaring, passed across the night, far away, and slightly booming. It entered the little room so that the air seemed to tremble a moment. To Hendricks it held something ominous. ‘The wind,’ he whispered, as the noise died off into the distance; ‘yet a moment ago the night was still enough. The stars were shining.’ There was tense excitement in the room just then. It showed in Leysin’s face, which had gone white as a cloth. Hendricks himself felt extraordinarily stirred. ‘Not wind, but human voices,’ the older man said quickly. ‘It’s shouting. Listen!’ and his eyes ran round the room, coming to rest finally in a corner where his hat and cloak hung from a nail. A gesture accompanied the look. He wanted to be out. The tutor half rose to take his leave. ‘You have duties to-night elsewhere,’ he stammered. ‘I’m forgetting.’ His own instinct was to get away himself with Bindy by the first early diligence. He was afraid of yielding. ‘Hush!’ whispered Leysin peremptorily. ‘Listen!’ He opened the window at the top, and through the crack, where the stars peeped brightly, there came, louder than before, the uproar of human voices floating through the night from far away. The air of the great pine forests came in with it. Hendricks listened intently a moment. He positively jumped to feel a hand upon his arm. Leysin’s big head was thrust close up into his face. ‘That’s the commotion in the village,’ he whispered. ‘A messenger has come and gone; some one has gone back with him. To-night I shall be needed--down here, but to-morrow night when the great ritual takes place--up there----!’