“The Messiah has come, who is to make us free!” I saw Sanson stiffen and catch at the rail of the nearing bridge. I saw David, now only an arm’s length from me, staring incredulous; Elizabeth with wide-open eyes, the bishop’s calm face, the Guard like carven effigies. Then, as if the power that held the populace in unison were suddenly dissolved, they broke from their places. They sprang with frantic, exultant cries toward the Ant; they formed a dozen human chains that reared themselves above the pedestal, dissolved, and poured over the golden idol. Among them I saw clusters of men—our men—with Ray rods in their hands. They poured out into the rooms that lined the passages. They swarmed up pillars and reached out hands to the captives. They howled at Sanson, whose bodyguard, closing about him, formed an impenetrable defense. The conspiracy had not miscarried. But all were shouting at me, and the fanatic spirit of hate that Sanson had evoked seemed to have recoiled and turned on him to his destruction. Suddenly the approaching spans stood still. They remained motionless, each end some three feet from me. Then, slowly, they began to recede. “Jump, Arnold!” I heard David scream above the uproar. I saw the plan to isolate me there, where none could reach me, helpless in the mid-Temple. I gathered Esther high in my arms, stepped back, and sprang; I felt myself falling. Still clutching Esther with one hand, I groped in blindness with the other. I struck the edge of the span. Hands held me; hands pulled Esther free; I stood among our friends, and behind us already the Guard was beaten backward. I saw the tattered outlaws’ figures everywhere. Only around Sanson were the Guard still potent. He saw the situation; he knew his power was crumbling as Lembken’s had crumbled; and, pushing his bodyguard aside, strode forward and held up his hand for silence. Even then—so great was his power—at the gesture, all motion in the Temple ceased; I saw arrested Ray rods, not yet discharged, held stiffly, limbs halted in air, necks craned toward the speaker and immobile. “Choose, then!” Sanson called in words that rang like a trumpet’s blast. “It is your supreme moment. Will you have your Messiah or will you have my gift—immortality?” “Give us God!” screamed the woman’s voice; and then a thousand and ten thousand answered him: “Give us God!” “The God of Bonham!” “Our fathers’ God, Whom we denied.” The people had answered truly in the supreme moment, as they must always, that the world may not cease. For, in the words of Renan, “the heart of the common people is the great reservoir of the self-devotion and resignation by which alone the world can be saved.” CHAPTER XXIV LEMBKEN