The weary-footed, anxious-eyed climbers of the golden stairs listened patiently, silently, even when the antagonists began, in vehement quarrel, to bandy threats, and hint at worse portents to come. To their experience, their hope, it seemed impossible even to dream their pilgrimage in vain. The dawn would show, anyhow. So hour by hour, minute by minute, the tide of pilgrims set citywards till it brimmed over with faith and hope. And these are dangerous things when charity depends on them, and there are antagonistic claims to every alms. So Eshwara was restless. Over in the gaol, also, by which the golden-shod feet passed so closely with their heart-stirring cry, it seemed as if Vincent Dering's thrumming, following as it did on the heels of Eugene Smith's success with the search light, had set what Dr. Dillon called his Hosts of the Devil in commotion. Indeed, that thrumming was still going on when George Dillon had gone raging over to conjure the experimenter, with oaths, to turn off his confounded bull's-eye at once, or the prisoners would go out of their judgment with thinking of the number who would have to die that night in order to keep up the supply of brain power!--just too, as he had been congratulating himself that the cholera scare was over. Seventy-two hours, and not a case! It was too bad! Eugene, whom he found on the roof of his house playing with coils, batteries, accumulators, had suggested eagerly that if there was real trouble, he might end it by turning his light bang on to the gaol, and so reducing it to a paralysis of sheer terror. Dr. Dillon, however, had sworn violently that he would not have the poor wretches frightened unnecessarily, especially when that triumphant cry of those who were free to defy the devil by seeking sanctification before death reminded them that _they_ could not--that they must die defiled, helpless, hopeless! That fear was, he said, in a way dignified, worthy of consideration. And he did not anticipate trouble unless there was treachery inside or out, though perhaps he might, as a precaution, ask Dering for an extra guard. But when the latter happened to come in, as Mrs. Smith's escort home, while the doctor was still there, Dr. Dillon apparently changed his mind. Anyhow, he pooh-poohed Captain Dering's offer to send one, saying, the more you could keep a gaol to yourself the better--or for the matter of that anything else! So, with a curt good-night to Mrs. Smith, he went back to his work, leaving Vincent to remark, carelessly, that Dillon seemed in a bad temper. At which Muriel smiled. There was something in the air, she said, conducive to bad temper. She, herself, felt she must soon have quarrelled with the doctor's assumption of knowing better than anyone else; so it was as well he had not stopped to dinner. Her quarrelsomeness did not, however, extend to Vincent, who did; indeed, she made herself so tenderly charming and unconsciously friendly towards him that he began