It was in this awful moment, when he had given up all hope, and the help
of gods or men seemed beyond question, that a strange thing happened.
For before his fading and terrified vision there slid, as in a dream of
light,--yet without apparent rhyme or reason--wholly unbidden and
unexplained,--the face of that other man at the supper table of the
railway inn. And the sight, even mentally, of that strong, wholesome,
vigorous English face, inspired him suddenly with a new courage.
It was but a flash of fading vision before he sank into a dark and
terrible death, yet, in some inexplicable way, the sight of that face
stirred in him unconquerable hope and the certainty of deliverance. It
was a face of power, a face, he now realised, of simple goodness such as
might have been seen by men of old on the shores of Galilee; a face, by
heaven, that could conquer even the devils of outer space.
And, in his despair and abandonment, he called upon it, and called with
no uncertain accents.
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