"Never!" came a shout from the back. It was Ernie's voice. The Colonel recognised it and thrilled. "We all know," continued the speaker, "that the gentry have put their coontry after their party. It's for the People to show them the true road, and put Democracy before even their coontry." "Hear! hear!" from Philip Blackburn. The speaker was growing to his task, growing as it grew. "This is a great spiritual issue. Are we to save our lives to lose them? or lose them to save them? The People are in the Valley of Decision. God and the Devil are standing on a mountain-top on either side the way crying--_Who is on my side?_" His great voice went billowing through the hall, borne, it seemed, on some huge wind of the spirit. He was holding the audience, carrying them. The Colonel felt it: the man with the closed eyelids in the chair on the platform felt it too. "Jaures, the beloved leader of our cause in France, has already made his choice--the first man to fall for Democracy. Shall he lie alone?" It was a dramatic touch, and told. "A have chosen ma part," the speaker went on more quietly. "A loov ma coontry; but there's something greater even than the fate of the coontry hanging in the balance now. Democracy's at stake!" A roar of applause greeted the remark. "It's the Emperors agin the People!" This time the roar was pierced by a shrill scream, "What about Russia?" The booming voice over-rode the interruption as a hurricane over-rides a blade of grass that stands in its track. "Look at little Serbia!--a handful of peasants standing up against a great militarist Empire. Look at Belgium!--the most peaceful nation on God's earth about to be over-run by the Kaiser's hordes. Look at France, the mother of Revolution, and the home of Democracy!--Could we forsake them now?" "Never!" in a growing thunder. "If so we forsook our own ideals, betrayed our past, turned our back on our future. Yea. The People must fight or perish." "He's got em," sobbed Ruth, her handkerchief tight in her mouth. The Colonel could feel her trembling. "The question to ma mind," continued the speaker, "is not whether we _should_ fight, but whether the officers of the Army--who have failed us once, mind!--_will_ fight." The blow went home and hammered a few dissentients into silence. "If not then we must find our own officers--roosset-coated captains who know what they're fighting for, and love what they know." The words were lost in a hurricane of cheering. "And ma last word to you," ended the speaker, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth, "is much that of the Great Apostle--_Stand and Fight!_" He flung the words at his audience with a power and a conviction that were overwhelming. A great bell was tolling in the Colonel's mind. "That's a great man," he found himself murmuring. "Aye, that's Joe," came the deep voice beside him.