"I shall not
fail," he repeated. "And when the telephone rings, you will be here--to
answer?"
"Yes, here," she replied huskily.
He went out. Under his feet the gravelly path ran through a flood of
moonlight. Over him the sky was agleam with stars. It was a white
night, one of those wonderful gold-white nights in the land of the
Saskatchewan. Under that sky the world was alive. The little city lay
in a golden glimmer of lights. Out of it rose a murmur, a rippling
stream of sound, the voice of its life, softened by the little valley
between. Into it Keith descended. He passed men and women, laughing,
talking, gay. He heard music. The main street was a moving throng. On a
corner the Salvation Army, a young woman, a young man, a crippled boy,
two young girls, and an old man, were singing "Nearer, My God, to
Thee." Opposite the Board of Trade building on the edge of the river a
street medicine-fakir had drawn a crowd to his wagon. To the beat of
the Salvation Army's tambourine rose the thrum of a made-up negro's
banjo.
Through these things Keith passed, his eyes open, his ears listening,
but he passed swiftly. What he saw and what he heard pressed upon him
with the chilling thrill of that last swan-song, the swan-song of Ecla,
of Kobat, of Ty, who had heard their doom chanted from the
mountain-tops.
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