He exclaimed, "It's from up on North Hill, but what in the world--" He suddenly crouched lower again, his pistol raised. Down the hill along North Jefferson came the long green car, racing fast. It swung around the Diamond. The man in it leaned out and called. The man behind the monument ran out to meet him, talking fast and gesticulating. But the driver of the car pointed northward and shouted. Wales could not see his face but he could hear the raw tone of his voice, and caught the one final word, "--coming!" The other man leaped into the car, after a last look around the empty Diamond. The car shot away down Washington, heading east. "Why, they've gone, run away!" Martha exclaimed. "They left their partner here and--" Wales held up his hand. "Listen!" As the roar of the receding car died away, the sound of singing came again--and this time it was louder, much louder, and there was a steady throb of drums beneath it. It rolled down from the north and he thought now he could hear the words of a chorus, endlessly repeated. "_Halle-lu-jah! Halle-lu-jah_--" Lights suddenly sprang into being up there on the crest of North Jefferson Street hill. They were not steady lights, they were moving, tossing and shaking, and there were dozens, scores of them. They were torches. A long, thick snake of burning torches came down the wide street into the dark and lifeless town. Wales could see no people, only the torches, scores of them, hundreds of them. But he could hear the loud chanting of the people who carried those lighted brands. "_Halle-lu-jah_--" Crash-crash-boom, thundered drums from the forefront of the river of torches, and Wales felt a wild quickening of their beat and of the chanting voices, that checked his breathing. Martha uttered a low cry. "Jay, it's the Brotherhood coming! The fanatics coming _here_ now, to--" The hair bristled on Wales' neck. She did not need to finish the horrified exclamation. The nightmare shape of the looming event was only too clear. From town to town the Brotherhood of Atonement marched, those weak, crazed minds unhinged by the coming of Doomsday. Brighton Falls they had burned, and Sharon, and God knows how many other deserted towns. And now it was the turn of Castletown to be a sacrifice and an atonement.... He wanted to turn and flee from that mad, oncoming parade. But he did not. He crouched, watching, and he felt Martha, beside him, shivering. "Jay, if they have Lee--he might be with them!" "That's what I'm hoping for," he whispered. * * * * * Now the torches were coming down into the Diamond, and now he could see the people who carried them. They started around the oval, and the tossing of the red burning brands was flashed back from the windows all around, that shone like big eyes watching in amazement.