“No!” he cried, “I will not ascend for yet awhile. Work remains to be done here, in this godless city; and I will renounce my rest until it has been brought to its end. Life must cease ere I can seek my rest. I bid you follow me that we may accomplish the task which has been laid upon me. Over yonder”--he evidently pointed towards us--“over yonder sits the Arch-Enemy; he who strives to chain pure spirits in this web of flesh. His hand is on all this city, so that the smoke of her burning goes up to the skies. Break asunder the chains which he is forging. Destroy the evil works which he has planned. Wreck the engines which he has designed. Come, my brothers; the doom is pronounced against all the works of his hand. Come, follow me and end it all. Destroy! Destroy! so that this world of sorrow and of sin may pass away like an evil vision and life may be no more. Destroy! Destroy!” Nordenholt, listening intently, pressed his finger upon the ivory stud. There was a moment’s pause, and then from the eastern end of the building came a sound of machine-guns. It lasted only for a few seconds and then died out. “They couldn’t miss at that range,” said Nordenholt. “That’s the end of the Reverend John personally. But I doubt if we are finished with him altogether even now.” CHAPTER XVIII The Eleventh Hour I have set down all my doubts as to the wisdom of Nordenholt’s treatment of the Reverend John; and it is only right to place on the other side the fact that events proved he had gauged matters better than I had done. He had foreseen the trend of the revivalist’s thoughts and had deduced their climax, probably long before Wester himself had understood the road he had placed his feet upon. Nordenholt had allowed the excitement to grow without check, even to its highest point, without interfering in the least; because he calculated that the supreme disillusion would produce a revulsion of feeling which could be attained in no other way. And his calculation proved to be correct. Morally shaken by the failure of the miracle which they had been led to expect, and which many of them had counted upon with certainty, the populace allowed itself to be driven back into the factories and mines without a word of protest. Their dreams were shattered and they fell back into reality without the strength to resist any dominant will. It seemed as though the last difficulties were disappearing before us; and that the path now led straight onward to our goal. So I thought, at least, but Nordenholt doubted. And, as it turned out, he again saw more clearly than I. We might be done with the Reverend John; but the Reverend John had not finished with us, dead as he was.