left to itself grows wilder than any creed.  A few days ago you and I were the maddest people in England.  Now, by God!  I believe we are the sanest.  That is the only real question—­ whether the Church is really madder than the world.  Let the rationalists run their own race, and let us see where they end.  If the world has some healthy balance other than God, let the world find it.  Does the world find it?  Cut the world loose,” he cried with a savage gesture.  “Does the world stand on its own end?  Does it stand, or does it stagger?”

Turnbull remained silent, and MacIan said to him, looking once more at the earth:  “It staggers, Turnbull.  It cannot stand by itself; you know it cannot.  It has been the sorrow of your life.  Turnbull, this garden is not a dream, but an apocalyptic fulfilment.  This garden is the world gone mad.”

Turnbull did not move his head, and he had been listening all the time; yet, somehow, the other knew that for the first time he was listening seriously.

“The world has gone mad,” said MacIan, “and it has gone mad about Us.  The world takes the trouble to make a big mistake about every little mistake made by the Church.  That is why they have turned ten counties to a madhouse; that is why crowds of kindly people are poured into this filthy melting-pot.  Now is the judgement of this world.  The Prince of this World is judged, and he is judged exactly because he is judging.  There is at last one simple solution to the quarrel between the ball and the cross——­”

Turnbull for the first time started.

“The ball and——­” he repeated.

“What is the matter with you?” asked MacIan.

“I had a dream,” said Turnbull, thickly and obscurely, “in which I saw the cross struck crooked and the ball secure——­”

“I had a dream,” said MacIan, “in which I saw the cross erect and the ball invisible.  They were both dreams from hell.  There must be some round earth to plant the cross upon.  But here is the awful difference—­that the round world will not consent even to continue round.  The astronomers are always telling us that it is shaped like an orange, or like an egg, or like a German sausage.  They beat the old world about like a bladder and thump it into a thousand shapeless shapes.  Turnbull, we cannot trust the ball to be always a ball; we cannot trust reason to be reasonable.  In the end the great terrestrial globe will go quite lop-sided, and only the cross will stand upright.”

There was a long silence, and then Turnbull said, hesitatingly:  “Has it occurred to you that since—­since those two dreams, or whatever they were——­”

“Well?” murmured MacIan.

“Since then,” went on Turnbull, in the same low voice, “since then we have never even looked for our swords.”

“You are right,” answered Evan almost inaudibly.  “We have found something which we both hate more than we ever hated each other, and I think I know its name.”