Thousands of eyes besides mine were strained on the foremost
figures on either side. They met as it chanced precisely at the
door of the house. The mob leader was a slender man, I saw; a
priest apparently, though now he was girt with unpriestly
weapons, his skirts were tucked up, and his head was bare. So
much my first glance showed me. It was at the second look it was
when I saw the blood forsake his pale lowering face and leave it
whiter than ever, when horror sprang along with recognition to
his eyes, when borne along by the crowd behind he saw his
position and who was before him--it was only then when his mean
figure shrank, and he quailed and would have turned but could
not, that I recognized the Coadjutor.
I was silent now, my mouth agape. There are seconds which are
minutes; ay, and many minutes. A man may die, a man may come
into life in such a second. In one of these, it seemed to me,
those two men paused, face to face; though in fact a pause was
for one of them impossible. He was between--and I think he knew
it--the devil and the deep sea.
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