"It's history," retorted Drayton boldly. He spoke up loudly, so that Trenmore also might hear. "To be convincing I must go back a long way in the history of Philadelphia-back to the very beginning of her isolation from the rest of the United States. You know nothing of that?"
Leaning from his throne, Cleverest whispered in the ear of Mr. Courage. The latter nodded.
"Stick to the bell itself, please," he said sternly. "We are not interested in the history of Philadelphia."
"I'll try to but you won't understand. Well, then, in that distant age there was a certain group of men practically, though not openly in control of this city. They were called 'grafters,' 'the contractor gang,' and 'the gang.' Those were titles of high honors then-like Servants and Superlatives, you know."
Here, Trenmore, on the bell, almost dropped the sword for sheer delight.
"These grafters," continued Drayton, "got hold of a man who had made a certain discovery. He was professor of physics in a university here. You know-or rather probably you don't know-that all matter in its atomic structure vibrates, and that different sorts of energy waves can affect that vibration. I am no physicist myself, and I can't tell you this in scientific terms. As I understood it, however, he discovered a combination of metals which, when treated in a certain way, would give off sound waves of the exact length of the vibration not of atoms, but of the electrons. That is to say-"
"This is madness," broke in Cleverest impatiently. "It is a jargon of senseless words!"
"Tell us about the bell," seconded Mr. Courage, and "Yes, the bell-the bell!" came from half a dozen other Servants.
"I am telling you of the bell," protested Drayton. "But you are too ignorant to grasp even a simple idea of it. Perhaps you can understand if I put it another way. This man-this professor had discovered a secret power by which metal, reverberating to a blow, might destroy not only other metal but human flesh, clothes, wood, marble, the very air you breathe! And these grafters, of whom you yourselves are the lineal descendants, forced the man to use his discovery for their benefit.
"With refined irony they took the old Liberty Bell. They had it recast. They made this professor recast the Liberty Bell itself, with other metal and in his new secret way-recast it as a much larger bell. It came out red as blood. Then they built this dome. They said Philadelphia should have the most glorious city hall in the world. They hung the bell there and they put the sword there. And then they set guards at the doors, and guns behind those panels. They invited the leading citizens to a demonstration. They forced the professor to play showman to his discovery, but they betrayed him so that his precautions for his own safety were annulled at the critical moment. Before the citizens' horrified eyes the professor, and the little gong he used for the experiment, and all the solid matter around it dissolved, disintegrated, vanished. He stood right there, where your pit yawns now. When he was gone there was a hole in the pavement as if made by a great explosion.
"And they-the grafters-set themselves up as masters of the city under threat of its complete destruction. They called themselves the Servants of Penn. They curtailed the education of the people as needless and too expensive. When the people complained, they placated them by abolishing all grades above the primary and turning the schools into dance halls and free moving-picture theaters. City hall they remodeled into a luxurious clubhouse where they themselves lived and reveled.
"Two generations later-generations of unschooled, iron-ruled citizens-and Penn had become a god. The poor, good old Quaker! His Servants made him the god of Lust, of Vice, of Drunkenness, of every sort of foul debauchery. The Servants were his priests and this his temple. In mockery they named themselves for the cardinal virtues-Mercy, Pity, Justice, Love. But they were tyrants without mercy, revelers in vice-"
"Stop!"
The command came from a livid, furious Cleverest, and the hand of a policeman cut off Drayton's flow of eloquence effectively. Cleverest was not the only angry man present. Drayton faced eight Servants who would have cheerfully torn him to pieces.
"Mr. Courage," Cleverest turned whitely to his uncle's lieutenant, "are you satisfied now, or do you desire further insult from this-this lying dog who would blacken the name of Penn and of Penn Service?"
"You were right, sir," conceded Courage. "I had not supposed that the brain of a human being could compass such a tissue of lies and blasphemy! We cannot be too quickly rid of the whole sacrilegious horde!"
Now was Cleverest's hour of triumph. With sickening certainty, Drayton realized that he had carried his tirade too far. He had not convinced; only enraged. Nothing but death remained. He wrenched his face away from the officer's hand.
"Strike, Terry!" he shouted. "I have spoken only the truth! Strike!"
Then did Terence Trenmore raise the Sword of Penn in good earnest. The fury that had been in him this hour past rose in his heart like boiling lava. Though be believed, no more than the Servants, he must strike at something. He could reach nothing human. There was the Red Bell!
As the sword swung up, even the disbelieving Servants stared fascinated. The police and pit guards dropped their prisoners and raised one beastlike wail of fear.
Up whirled the sword and descended, a yellow flash of flame. It rose again.
A strange reverberation shook the air. It was not like the note of a bell, nor of a gong, nor of any man-made thing. It was more than sound-worse than sound. It was a feeling; an emotion; the sickening pang of a spirit wrenching itself from a body racked with pain.
Every living being in that great place save one dropped where he was, and lay writhing feebly beneath the awful, echoing dome.
But Trenmore, standing against the bell itself, did not fall. Perhaps he was too close to be affected. Perhaps the scaffolding which pressed on the bell, preventing its full reverberation, broke the sound waves for him. At least he still stood; and now he seemed to be peering through a crimson haze of fury. Though after that first blow he might have brought even Penn Service to terms, he cared not to temporize. He cared only to destroy. Again he brought down the sword with all his terrible strength.
His foothold sagged beneath him. Looking upward he beheld an awe-inspiring thing. The golden Dome of Justice was sinking; crumpling inward. It was growing transparent, like a sheet of gold leaf beaten too thin. A moment later and he could see through it on upward.
He saw the high, gray-white tower, with its illuminated clock face, and still above that the circle of white lights about the feet of Penn. He saw the huge statue sway and stagger like a drunken man. Beneath it the tower began to bend like a tallow candle set in an oven thrice heated.
A warning quiver shot through the scaffold. With one yell of sheer, savage delight, Trenmore heaved up the sword. For the third and last time it smote the blood-red Threat of Penn!
Then the air was sucked out of his lungs; sight was wiped from his eyes. His muscles relaxed and he lost all power to feel; but he knew in the deathless soul of him that his body was falling and that the created world had dissolved, disintegrated into formless chaos!
CHAPTER 20: TRANSFERRED HOME
TRENMORE fell but not into the empty void created when the Red Bell dissolved itself, its temple and its world.
He struck feet first on some kind of hard surface, jarred in every bone and nerve by the impact. As light flashed up all around him, he staggered against a man.
The next incident can only be explained by the fact that Trenmore was still "seeing red." The fight had been by no means knocked out of him by the recent catastrophe. He grasped one fact and one only. The man against whom he had stumbled wore a black coat and a silk hat, accursed insignia of Penn Service. Promptly grappling with this individual, they went to the pavement together. While Terry reached for his adversary's throat, the latter let out yell after yell of terror and dismay.