He told them of Sister Falconer and her message, of their plans and desires at Clontar, and asked for a minute of silent prayer for the power of the Holy Ghost to descend upon the tabernacle. He stood back—his chair was upstage, beside the choir—as Sharon floated forward, not human, a goddess, tears thick in lovely eyes as she perceived the throng that had come to her.
“My dear ones, it is not I who bring you anything, but you who in your faith bring me strength!” she said shakily. Then her voice was strong again; she rose on the wave of drama.
“Just now, looking across the sea to the end of the world, I saw an omen for all of us—a fiery line written by the hand of God—a glorious shooting star. Thus he apprized us of his coming, and bade us be ready. Oh, are you ready, are you ready, will you be ready when the great day comes—”
The congregation was stirred by her lyric earnestness.
But outside there were less devout souls. Two workmen had finished polishing the varnished wooden pillars as the audience began to come. They slipped outside, on the promenade along the pier, and sat on the rail, enjoying the coolness, slightly diverted by hearing a sermon.
“Not a bad spieler, that woman. Puts it all over this guy Reverend Golding uptown,” said one of the workmen, lighting a cigarette, keeping it concealed in his palm as he smoked.
The other tiptoed across the promenade to peer through the door, and returned mumbling. “Yuh, and a swell looker. Same time though, tell you how I feel about it: woman’s all right in her place, but takes a real he-male to figure out this religion business.”
“She’s pretty good though, at that,” yawned the first workman, snapping away his cigarette. “Say, let’s beat it. How ’bout lil glass beer? We can go along this platform and get out at the front, I guess.”
“All right. You buying?”
The workmen moved away, dark figures between the sea and the doors that gave on the bright auditorium.
The discarded cigarette nestled against the oily rags which the workmen had dropped on the promenade, beside the flimsy walls of the tabernacle. A rag glowed round the edges, wormlike, then lit in circling flame.
Sharon was chanting: “What could be more beautiful than a tabernacle like this, set on the bosom of the rolling deep? Oh, think what the mighty tides have meant in Holy Writ! The face of the waters on which moved the spirit of Almighty God, when the earth was but a whirling and chaotic darkness! Jesus baptized in the sweet waters of Jordan! Jesus walking the waves—so could we today if we had but his faith! O dear God, strengthen thou our unbelief, give us faith like unto thine own!”
Elmer sitting back listening, was moved as in his first adoration for her. He had become so tired of her poetizing that he almost admitted to himself that he was tired. But tonight he felt her strangeness again, and in it he was humble. He saw her straight back, shimmering in white satin, he saw her superb arms as she stretched them out to these thousands, and in hot secret pride he gloated that this beauty, beheld and worshiped of so many, belonged to him alone.
Then he noted something else.
A third of the way back, coming through one of the doors opening on the promenade, was a curl of smoke. He startled; he almost rose; he feared to rouse a panic; and sat with his brain a welter of terrified jelly till he heard the scream “Fire—fire!” and saw the whole audience and the choir leaping up, screaming—screaming—screaming—while the flimsy doorjamb was alight and the flame rose fan-like toward the rafters.
Only Sharon was in his mind—Sharon standing like an ivory column against the terror. He rushed toward her. He could hear her wailing, “Don’t be afraid! Go out slowly!” She turned toward the choir, as with wild white robes they charged down from their bank of seats. She clamored, “Don’t be afraid! We’re in the temple of the Lord! He won’t harm you! I believe! Have faith! I’ll lead you safely through the flames!”
But they ignored her, streamed past her, thrusting her aside.
He seized her arm. “Come here, Shara! The door at the back! We’ll jump over and swim ashore!”
She seemed not to hear him. She thrust his hand away and went on demanding, her voice furious with mad sincerity, “Who will trust the Lord God of Hosts? Now we’ll try our faith! Who will follow me?”
Since two-thirds of the auditorium was to the shoreward side of the fire, and since the wide doors to the promenade were many, most of the audience were getting safely out, save for a child crushed, a woman fainting and trampled. But toward the stage the flames, driven by the sea-wind, were beating up through the rafters. Most of the choir and the audience down front had escaped, but all who were now at the back were cut off.
He grasped Sharon’s arm again. In a voice abject with fear he shouted, “For God’s sake, beat it! We can’t wait!”
She had an insane strength; she thrust him away so sharply that he fell against a chair, bruising his knee. Furious with pain, senseless with fear, he raged, “You can go to hell!” and galloped off, pushing aside the last of the hysterical choir. He looked back and saw her, quite alone, holding up the white wooden cross which had stood by the pulpit, marching steadily forward, a tall figure pale against the screen of flames.
All of the choir who had not got away remembered or guessed the small door at the back; so did Adelbert and Art Nichols; and all of them were jamming toward it.
That door opened inward—only it did not open, with the score of victims thrust against it. In howling panic, Elmer sprang among them,
