“Be assured that I am with you to the end,” I said. And I swore that I would do all in my power, so long as I had life and liberty, to fight for human freedom. And as I swore I had a vision of the girl, mangled and crushed upon the stones beneath that tropical, aerial hell beneath the noble dome of England’s shameful temple. I think the resolution in my manner must have enkindled David’s hopes, for he put out his hand and caught mine again, and wrung and held it. “You do not know, Arnold, how necessary you are to us,” he said. “But tonight you shall be told. I am old, Arnold, and I have little courage. I have lived through too many changes and frustrated hopes. I had grown used and resigned to things that had come to seem unchangeable. The freedom of my youth was only a dream to me. Sometimes I doubted whether men had ever been free. It was your surprise, your ignorance, then the indignation which you thought I did not see that made me begin to understand my own degradation. And it was today’s events that gave me heart to work with all my might for the cause to which I had only languidly adhered. I have been one of the revolutionary committee for months, and now I shall fight whole-heartedly, and you with me.” “David,” I said with sudden conviction, “you are a Christian.” His eyes suddenly seemed to blaze. “I am!” he cried. “As we all are. I have temporized with evil all these years, but now I cannot do so any more. The hope of the world can never be crushed out; it is spreading everywhere. All of us are enlisted under that flag that was raised on the Mount two thousand years ago. We see that without Christ, life is intolerable. I knew your faith from the first, Arnold, although I dared not speak, I knew it at the beginning because I thought you were a Russian. That was why I befriended you. We know our own!” he cried triumphantly. Elizabeth put one arm about her father’s neck and extended her free hand to me. I clasped it, and then the airscout’s; and so we pledged ourselves. CHAPTER XVI THE MESSIAH’S ANNUNCIATION Jones left us and came back with some food. Upon his arm he carried a stranger’s uniform, which he handed to me. “You cannot wear those robes,” he said. “Take this. It should fit you; it belonged to one of our recruits who was ascribed last week and has not yet returned it to the Wool Stores.” I was glad to see the last of the priest’s robes. He carried them away, promising to return for us in an hour. Elizabeth made us eat, but we had little heart to do so. At her insistence, however, we made the best display of appetite that was possible. The room was only faintly illumined by the reflected solar light that issued up the elevator shaft. With it there mounted the sound of the voices of the airscouts in their barracks below. Sometimes the elevator rushed by, arousing a thrill of fear in each of us. David drew me toward him and began speaking softly.