The older man looked up, for a moment, as though puzzled.  Then a light broke suddenly across his face, a light which seemed somehow to become reflected in the face of the starveling youth.

“Maraton!” he almost shrieked.

“Maraton!” the other echoed.  “He is here in London!”

The face of the older man twitched with excitement.

“But they will arrest him!”

“If they dared,” Aaron Thurnbrein declared harshly, “a million of us would tear him out of prison.  But they will not.  Maraton is too clever.  America has not even asked for extradition.  For our sakes he keeps within the law.  He is here in London!  He is stripped for the fight!”

David Ross rose heavily to his feet.  One saw then that he was not really old.  Starvation and ill-health had branded him with premature age.  He was not thin but the flesh hung about him in folds.  His cheeks were puffy; his long, hairy eyebrows drooped down from his massive forehead.  There was the look about him of a strong man gone to seed.

“They will be all around him like flies over a carcass!” he muttered.

“Mr. Foley—­Foley—­the Prime Minister—­sent for him directly he arrived,” Aaron Thurnbrein announced.  “He is to see him to-night at his own house in Downing Street.  It makes no difference.”

“Who can tell?” the other remarked despondently.  “The pages of history are littered with the bodies of strong men who have opened their lips to the poisoned spoon.”

Aaron Thurnbrein spat upon the floor.

“There is but one Maraton,” he cried fervently.  “There has been but one since the world was shaped.  He is come, and the first step towards our deliverance is at hand.”

The older man, whose trembling fingers still rested upon the sheets of paper, looked at his visitor curiously.

“You are a Jew,” he muttered.  “Why do you worship Maraton?  He is not of your race.”

The young man’s gesture was almost sublime.

“Jew or Christian—­what does it matter?” he demanded.  “I am a Jew.  What has my religion done for me?  Nothing!  I am a free man in my thoughts.  I am one of the oppressed.  Men or women, Jews or Christians, infidels or believers—­what does it matter?  We are those who have been broken upon the wheel.  Deliverance for us will come too late.  We fight for those who will follow.  It is Maraton who points towards the light.  It is Maraton whose hand shall press the levers which shall set the kingdoms rocking.  I tell you that our own country, even, may bite the dust—­a conqueror’s hand lay heavy upon her throat; and yet, no matter.  Through the valley of fire and blood and pestilence—­one must pass through these to the great white land.”

“Amen!” David Ross cried fervently.  “The gift is upon you to-day, Aaron.  Amen!”

The two stood together for a moment, speechless, carried away out of themselves.  Then the door was suddenly opened.  The woman stood there, sour and withered; behind her, a hard-featured man, official, malevolent.