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Persephone's grief at the foot of the cross that bore Mr. Evans was the finest piece of acting in the whole Pageant. Its emotion was so sincere that it swept the whole picture together as nothing else could have done. The girl's monumental gestures were like those of some classic representation of her own namesake, the great Goddess of the Dead. Her sublime suffering gave a strange unity to all the minor groups and personages, their businesses, their occupations, their pastimes. She seemed to gather the diurnal preoccupations of the whole race together and with passionate solicitude to offer it up, like a cup of hyssop, to the lips of the dying. The other Marys, Mary the sister of Lazarus and Mary Magdalene, came now to Our Lady's side, however, and with their approach an unhappy crisis in the directing of the performance came to the surface.

Ned Athling, anxious to try every sort of new experiment, wanted to introduce a tragic dance at this point by the two Marys round the prostrate figure of Christ's Mother. This, in view of their Catholic up-bringing in Ireland, was too much for the Dubliners. They refused to countenance it. Athling, however —and this had happened in other cases as well—insisted on going on with it, with the result that the two girls who were playing the two Marys, Bessie and Lizzie Marsh from Bove Town, were completely confused, and as they bent together over the prostrate form of the Virgin, they made several sinuous movements with their flexible hips and several swaying movements with their bare arms, while at the same time they lifted up their voices and chanted the ballad-like refrain that Athling had written for them.

The nervous blundering of these young and pretty girls was not at all distasteful to the bulk of the foreigners, to some of whom it appeared as the final touch of modern art, to others as a naive example of English barbarism; but to the feelings of Mary Crow, who recognised at once that someone had made a mistake, it was a harrowing spectacle. She turned hurriedly to catch the eye of Father Paleologue, but he smiled b^ck at her reassuringly, however, and when she murmured her fears, “Oh, of course one can see that!” he whispered. “But chance has favoured these people at every turn, and though to many these dancing gestures—there! they are doing it again!—must seem ridiculous enough and even outrageous, still you must remember that the Magdalene must in her time have danced for her patrons. Why should she not now, poor girl—like the Jongleur of Paris before the altar—dance for the Crucified?”

“But, Father,” she protested, “the other Mary ... the type of contemplation . . . surely------”

“Yes, yes, lady,” he conceded. “It's a mistake. It”s the only bad mistake theyve made. But those little girls are sweet creatures and-------"

“Father, I believe you're laughing at us all the time!”

Father Paleologue became in a moment intensely grave. “If I did tliat, dear daughter,” he said earnestly, 4Td deserve to be unfrocked. I'd deserve to be cut in pieces like your last Abbot. I'd deserve anyhow—“ and he gave her an irresistibly winning smile that broke through the mask of his stiff archaic face as though a lamp had been lit within his soul—”not to have had the exquisite pleasure IVe had today."

“Thank God they're going—those girls!” cried Miss Drew in a shrill voice. “And they're dancing away, hand in hand, now, as if it were a may-pole they were leaving, not their dying Saviour.” Her words reached the ears of the Marquis of P. who turned and gave her a gracious little bow. It was the first time he had recognised Miss Drew today, but these caustic sentiments of hers met with his entire approval.

“Are those baggages,” remarked Miss Barbara Fell, “who have just gone dancing ofE into that tent, supposed to be camp-followers to those soldiers gambling there?”

Fell returned no answer.

“I asked you, Manny, if those girls-------” and she repeated

her whole remark.

“One of them is a Saint still invoked in Glastonbury, sister” —the doctor's voice was strained to the breaking-point and in his heart he was saying to himself, “I can't bear it ... I can't bear it ... I can't bear it”—“and the other is that Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who was such an especial friend of Jesus. I don't know why they swayed about like that. Perhaps they were so unhappy that they took to drink!”

“What's the matter, Angela,” asked Mr. Beere crossly. “You can't sit still a moment. .We can't go before the end. I suppose it's getting on for the end now.” These extraordinary words that could scarcely have been uttered on the continent of Europe were luckily heard by no one except Angela and tG her they were no more than the portentous yawn from the old gentleman that followed them. They were no more than the buzzing of a blue bottle fly that at that moment flew past her ears. Her face was white and her whole body was trembling with excitement. The soul within her yearned to that beautiful form that now with uplifted arms was embracing the feet of the suspended Figure.

There was another person in that big audience who was as agitated as Angela Beere and that was the Vicar of Glastonbury. Indignation had coloured Mat Dekker's face a dusky red and his heavy brows were knotted over his bushy eyebrows. The whole business filled him with sick aversion. Why, oh why had he ever allowed such a thing as this to take place in his loved town? For all his High Church practices Mat Dekker at heart was as simple an Evangelical as John Bunyan or John Wesley. He regarded this whole performance as a monstrous and ghastly parody of an historic Event that had changed the life of the cosmos, “I can't stick it out, son, I can't stick it out!” he groaned.

Sam laid his large hand on his father's knee. “It's the end now, Dad, I think. Those fellows, lugging that step-ladder, are going to take Him down. Ned Athling is with them himself. He's supposed to be Joseph of Arimathea.”

“Damn Ned Athling!”

It was at that moment that the Christ-Evans uttered the only words he had-spoken since he had been lifted up. He cried suddenly in a great voice that rang out across Tor Field and across the gipsy caravans, and across Chilkwell Street, till it reached the blood-red fountain in Chalice Hill: “Eloi, Eloi, Lama, Sabachthani!”

T3ie two Dekkers rose simultaneously to their feet. “That man . . . that Evans . . . wasn't playing then . . . Look, me boy, his head's really hanging down now. I must see to this!”

“Go slow, Dad! He may be all right. It may only be his damned acting. Don't make a fool of yourself, Dad! No! It's no joke. They are running out of the tents! They're breaking up. Something is wrong. He is ill. He's hurt. He's fainted!” They pushed their way together between the rows of seats and began running towards the stage. They were not the first to do this, however. A good distance in front of them Cordelia Geard was rushing wildly towards that great cross of oak-wood. Their movement was a signal for a general uprising. Many others—among them Dr. Fell—were running now up the slope, towards the terrace, where Mr. Evans hung by his armpits. Meanwhile it was the ironical duty of the pretended Saint Joseph to act in real genuine earnest in this unrehearsed Descent from the Cross.

Inside the western pavilion there was now a scene of the utmost confusion. The two Marys, little Bessie and Lizzie, had been both sobbing hysterically in shame over their fiasco. John Crow had been vainly trying to comfort them. “Us have spoilt the Pageant!” Bessie was moaning. “Oh, why did 'ee let we do it?” “Us'll never be able to look anyone in the face again!” Lizzie was wailing. “I wish I were dead! I wish I were dead!^ But the little maids' distress was now broken into by a wild uproar. ”Evans have fainted! Evans have burst a blood-vessel! There be blood pouring out of Evans5 mouth!" Both John and Barter—careless now about appearing before the audience in their ordinary clothes—rushed out of the tent and ran to the scene of the trouble. The Roman soldiers had already left their dice and their cards and were engaged in helping the Jewish slders lift the cross bodily out of the ground ^nd lower it down upon the grass. There were so many powerful young farmhands among them that this was not a difficult undertaking.

Capporelli had come up meanwhile and was gesticulating violently, talking so rapidly in French that everyone near him only stared. Some of the Roman soldiers—rough lads from the Sedge-moor farms—nudged each other and made fun of him. “Play over. Play quite done,” they cried to him in pidgin English as if he were a Chinaman.

Cordelia had become cold and calm. She was giving rapid; incisive directions to the lads who were lowering the cross. Ned Athling, in a bewildered trance, perched upon the upper steps of his step-ladder, was contemplating the surging movements which looked for a time like a dangerous panic, that were now rocking the excited audience. He tried to make out the figure of Lady Rachel, but the crowd was too dense.

Barter was one of the few who kept his head at this juncture. “Did you say that those Dublin people had got a megaphone somewhere?” he asked.

John looked at him quickly- “To quiet the audience* you mean?”

“Of course. We can't let 'em break up without a word.”

“Let's go and see.”

They crossed over to the eastern tent and there, sure enough, after a word with the Dub liners, whom they found on their knees hurriedly flinging all their private belongings into two black handbags, like passengers in a sinking ship, the megaphone was produced.

“What shall we say? Will you do it?” Barter found himself yelling these words into John's ears as they carried their megaphone past the outskirts of the crowd that was now surging aiid shouting about the prostrate cross and above the unconscious form of Mr. Evans. It must have been that vision of the Dub-liners packing their black bags that compelled him to yell like that when John could have perfectly well have heard a whisper!

And what unconscious force was it that made the two friends —like two field-marshals whose army is defeated and in full flight—carry the megaphone back to their own eastern tent instead of using it at once where they had found it? The power of habit with these two men had been more quickly established than one would have believed possible! John and Barter must have hurried with their megaphone to the spot where they were used to giving their orders, as instinctively as a dog carries a bone to his kennel. Probably in a boat of starving derelicts who have just killed and torn to pieces one of their companions each man would be driven to convey his portion of the cannibal feast to his own bench, by the side of his own row-lock. At the door of their own tent they encountered Crummie freshly emerged from the ladies' tiring-room and as trim and lovely as ever in an ordinary summer frock,

“Oh, I'm so glad you've got that thing!” she cried. “I was just going to ask you if there wasn't something of that sort to quiet them. I suppose if he's only fainted you'll go on with the Pageant?”

John looked at Barter and Barter looked at John. What a girl this was! “I . . . we . . . they------” began Barter. “We thought we'd let it end here,” said John.

Crummie surveyed the two disconcerted representatives of her father with a puzzled frown. She then turned her eyes upon the audience. Yes! they were all on their feet and most of them pushing and struggling to extricate themselves from the chairs and benches. Soon they would be scattered in all directions. Many were already rushing wildly up the hill towards the pavilions. The girl smiled sweetly. “Better do it now if you're going to do it,” she said. “Tell them that the Mayor bids them good-bye and thanks them for coming.”

John lifted the megaphone to his mouth. “Do I just shout it out?” he asked her nervously.

Mr. Geard's daughter looked round. The Middlezoy foreman!, still dressed up as King Arthur, was standing nearby, quietly lighting his pipe. She called the man by name and he slouched up to them. “Take this,” said Crummie. “Run over to Pilate's what-do-you-call-it, will you? Shout out to them that the Mayor bids them good-bye, and tell them to go home quietly, and that Mr. Evans has only fainted!”

King Arthur lost no time in obeying to the letter this clear command of the resuscitated Lady of Shalott. He ascended the wooden rostrum and standing erect there—a majestic and imposing figure—he bellowed forth in a terrific voice;—“Ladies and Gentlemen; attention all, please!” His words were audible all over the field. Even the gipsies in their caravans heard them. The Dye-Works strikers came pouring out of Dickery Cantle's tent, well refreshed with meat and wine. Everybody stood still and listened. It was as if the real Rex Arturus himself had suddenly reappeared to restore peace upon earth and fulfill his magician's prophecy.

“What a girl!” whispered Barter to John as they followed Crummie with their eyes as she stood behind the rostrum, prompting the Middlezoy foreman.

“But Evans may be dead,” murmured John.

“Not he,” returned the other. “But even if he is-------”

“The Mayor wishes to assure ye all that the gentleman be only fainted. The Mayor thinks best for Pageant to end here and now. The Mayor thanks ye all for coming, especially those of ye what come from far. The Mayor hopes ye'll all come to Glastonbury again. The Mayor-------” There was a pause at this point while King Arthur bent his head to catch his prompter's words. Then raising the megaphone again—“The Mayor gives ye all the Blessing of the Living Christ!” The foreman came carefully down the creaking wooden steps with the megaphone under his arm.

Crummie was watching with delight the surprising effect of these words from the slope of the hill. It was as if, in the very midst of some wild panic under the urge of an earthquake or a volcano, every person had been struck mute and immobile, exactly where they were.

Even John and Barter were silent for a moment staring down at that petrified mass of people. John had time to observe that when the crowd began to move again it was in quite a different manner. There was no longer a tendency to rush up the hill in a dense mob. Everyone seemed to become a separate individual again. The crowd-hypnosis had been entirely dispelled by this invocation of the Redeemer of the Individual.

“What a pity,” thought Ned Athling, as he came out of his trance and scrambled down his step-ladder, tripping awkwardly over his Arimathean robes, “What a pity that they never heard my verses about the Heathen Grail!”