suppose it must be to-night?” said Mrs. Dimble, rather shamefacedly.
“I am afraid it must, Margaret,” said the Director. “Every minute counts. We have practically lost the war if the enemy once make contact with him. Their whole plan probably turns on it.”
“Of course. I see. I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Dimble.
“And what is our procedure, sir?” said Dimble, pushing his plate away from him and beginning to fill his pipe.
“The first question is whether he’s out,” said the Director. “It doesn’t seem likely that the entrance to the tunnel has been hidden all these centuries by nothing but a heap of loose stones. And if it has, they wouldn’t be very loose by now. He may take hours getting out.”
“You’ll need at least two strong men with picks——” began MacPhee.
“It’s no good, MacPhee,” said the Director. “I’m not letting you go. If the mouth of the tunnel is still sealed, you must just wait there. But he may have powers we don’t know. If he’s out, you must look for tracks. Thank God it’s a muddy night. You must just hunt him.”
“If Jane is going, sir,” said Camilla, “couldn’t I go too? I’ve had more experience of this sort of thing than——”
“Jane has to go because she is the guide,” said Ransom. “I am afraid you must stay at home. We in this house are all that is left of Logres. You carry its future in your body. As I was saying, Dimble, you must hunt. I do not think he can get far. The country will, of course, be quite unrecognisable to him, even by daylight.”
“And . . . if we do find him, sir?”
“That is why it must be you, Dimble. Only you know the Great Tongue. If there was eldilic power behind the tradition he represented he may understand it. Even if he does not understand it he will, I think, recognise it. That will teach him he is dealing with Masters. There is a chance that he will think you are the Belbury people—his friends. In that case you will bring him here at once.”
“And if not?”
“Then you must show your hand. That is the moment when the danger comes. We do not know what the powers of the old Atlantean circle were: some kind of hypnotism probably covered most of it. Don’t be afraid: but don’t let him try any tricks. Keep your hand on your revolver. You too, Denniston.”
“I’m a good hand with a revolver myself,” said MacPhee. “And why, in the name of all common sense——”
“You can’t go, MacPhee,” said the Director. “He’d put you to sleep in ten seconds. The others are heavily protected as you are not. You understand, Dimble? Your revolver in your hand, a prayer on your lips, your mind fixed on Maleldil. Then, if he stands, conjure him.”
“What shall I say in the Great Tongue?”
“Say that you come in the name of God and all angels and in the power of the planets from one who sits to-day in the seat of the Pendragon, and command him to come with you. Say it now.”
And Dimble, who had been sitting with his face drawn and rather white, between the white faces of the two women, and his eyes on the table, raised his head, and great syllables of words that sounded like castles came out of his mouth. Jane felt her heart leap and quiver at them. Everything else in the room seemed to have become intensely quiet: even the bird, and the bear, and the cat, were still, staring at the speaker. The voice did not sound like Dimble’s own: it was as if the words spoke themselves through him from some strong place at a distance—or as if they were not words at all but present operations of God, the planets, and the Pendragon. For this was the language spoken before the Fall and beyond the Moon, and the meanings were not given to the syllables by chance, or skill, or long tradition, but truly inherent in them as the shape of the great Sun is inherent in the little waterdrop. This was Language herself, as she first sprang at Maleldil’s bidding out of the molten quicksilver of the star called Mercury on Earth, but Viritrilbia in Deep Heaven.
“Thank you,” said the Director in English; and once again the warm domesticity of the kitchen flowed back upon them. “And if he comes with you, all is well. If he does not—why then, Dimble, you must rely on your Christianity. Do not try any tricks. Say your prayers and keep your will fixed in the will of Maleldil. I don’t know what he will do. But stand firm. You can’t lose your soul, whatever happens; at least, not by any action of his.”
“Yes,” said Dimble. “I understand.”
There was a longish pause. Then the Director spoke again.
“Don’t be cast down, Margaret,” he said. “If they kill Cecil we shall none of us be let live many hours after him. It will be a shorter separation than you could have hoped for in the course of Nature. And now, gentlemen,” he said, “you would like a little time to say your prayers, and to say good-bye to your wives. It is eight now, as near as makes no matter. Suppose you all reassemble here at ten past eight, ready to start?”
“Very good,” answered several voices. Jane found herself left alone in the kitchen with Mrs. Maggs and the animals and MacPhee and the Director.
“You are all right, child?” said Ransom.
“I think so, sir,” said Jane. Her actual state of mind was one she could not analyse. Her expectation was strung up to the height; something that would have been terror but for the joy, and joy but for the terror, possessed her—an all-absorbing tension of excitement and obedience. Everything else in her life seemed small and commonplace compared with this moment.
“Do you place yourself in the obedience,” said the Director, “in obedience to Maleldil?”
“Sir,” said Jane, “I know nothing of Maleldil. But I place myself in obedience to you.”
“It is enough for the present,” said the Director. “This is the courtesy of Deep Heaven: that when you mean well, He always takes you to have meant better than you knew. It will not be enough for always. He is very jealous. He will have you for no one but Himself in the end. But for to-night, it is enough.”
“This is the craziest business that ever I heard of,” said MacPhee.
Chapter Eleven
Battle Begun
I
“I can’t see a thing,” said Jane.
“This rain is spoiling the whole plan,” said Dimble from the back seat. “Is this still Eaton Road, Arthur?”
“I think . . . yes, there’s the toll-house,” said Denniston who was driving.
“But what’s the use?” said Jane. “I can’t see, even with the window down. We might have passed it any number of times. The only thing is to get out and walk.”
“I think she’s right, sir,” said Denniston.
“I
