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were both dreams from hell. There must be some round earth to plant the cross upon. But here is the awful difference—that the round world will not consent even to continue round. The astronomers are always telling us that it is shaped like an orange, or like an egg, or like a German sausage. They beat the old world about like a bladder and thump it into a thousand shapeless shapes. Turnbull, we cannot trust the ball to be always a ball; we cannot trust reason to be reasonable. In the end the great terrestrial globe will go quite lop-sided, and only the cross will stand upright.”

There was a long silence, and then Turnbull said, hesitatingly: “Has it occurred to you that since—since those two dreams, or whatever they were——”

“Well?” murmured MacIan.

“Since then,” went on Turnbull, in the same low voice, “since then we have never even looked for our swords.”

“You are right,” answered Evan almost inaudibly. “We have found something which we both hate more than we ever hated each other, and I think I know its name.”

Turnbull seemed to frown and flinch for a mo-