Chapter XXIV

The evening was dark and sultry. Above the trees clouds chased each other across the sky, hurrying onward as to some mysterious goal. In pale green spaces overhead faint stars glimmered and then vanished. Above, all was commotion, while the earth seemed waiting, as in breathless suspense. Amid this silence, human voices in dispute sounded harsh and shrill.

"Anyhow," exclaimed Von Deitz, blundering along in unwieldy fashion, "Christianity has enriched mankind with an imperishable boon, being the only system of morals that is complete and comprehensible."

"Quite so," replied Yourii, who walked behind the last speaker tossing his head defiantly, and glaring at the officer's back, "but in its conflict with the bestial instincts of mankind Christianity has proved itself to be as impotent as all the other religions."

"How do you mean, 'proved itself to be'?" exclaimed Von Deitz angrily. "To Christianity belongs the future, and to suggest that it is obsolete..."

"There is no future for Christianity," broke in Yourii vehemently. "If at the zenith of its development Christianity could not triumph, but became the tool of a shameless gang of impostors, it would be nothing short of absurd to expect a miracle nowadays, when even the word Christianity sounds grotesque. History is inexorable; what has once disappeared from the scene can never return."

"Do you mean to say that Christianity has disappeared from the scene?" shrieked Von Deitz.

"Certainly, I do," continued Yourii obstinately. "You seem as surprised as if such an idea were utterly impossible. Just as the law of Moses has passed away, just as Buddha and the gods of Greece are dead, so, too, Christ is dead. It is but the law of evolution. Why should you be so amazed? You don't believe in the divinity of his doctrine, do you?"

"No, of course not," retorted Von Deitz, less irritated at the question than at Yourii's offensive tone.

"Then how can you maintain that a man is able to create eternal laws?"

"Idiot!" thought Yourii, agreeably convinced that the other was infinitely less intelligent than he, and would never be able to comprehend what was as plain and clear as noonday.

"Supposing it were so," rejoined Von Deitz, nettled, in his turn. "The future will nevertheless have Christianity as its basis. It has not perished, but, like seed in the soil ..."

"I was not talking about that," said Yourii, confused somewhat, and thus the more vexed, "what I meant to say ..."

"No, excuse me, but that's what you said...."

"If I said no, then I meant no! How absurd you are!" interrupted Yourii, rendered more furious by the thought that this stupid Von Deitz should for a moment