Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/321

“And yet you came from the outside, too, Jim,” said the stranger in a voice almost affectionate.

“What do you want?” asked Turnbull, with an explosion of temper as sudden as a pistol shot.

“I have already told you,” said the man, lowering his voice and speaking with evident sincerity; “I want you.”

“What do you want with me?”

“I want exactly what you want,” said the new-comer with a new gravity. “I want the Revolution.”

Turnbull looked at the fire-swept sky and the wind-stricken woodlands, and kept on repeating the word voicelessly to himself—the word that did indeed so thoroughly express his mood of rage as it had been among those red clouds and rocking tree-tops. “Revolution!” he said to himself. “The Revolution— Yes, that is what I want right enough—anything, so long as it is a Revolution.”

To some cause he could never explain he found himself completing the sentence on the top of the wall, having automatically followed the stranger so far. But when the stranger silently indicated the rope that led to the machine, he found himself