Page:Edgar Wallace--The book of all-power.djvu/118

 meet the inexplicable, accept it as such and inquire no further."

She was silent again, and when she spoke she was more serious.

"The Russian people always impress me as a great sea of lava, boiling and spluttering and rolling slowly between frail banks which we have built for them," said the girl.

"I often wonder whether those banks will ever break," said Malcolm quietly; "if they do" "Yes?"

"They will burn up Russia," said Malcolm.

"So I think," said the girl. "Father believes that the war" she stopped short.

"The war?"

Malcolm had heard rumours so often of the inevitable war which would be fought to establish the hegemony of the Slav over Eastern Europe that the scepticism in his tone was pardonable. She looked at him sharply.

"You do not think there will be war?"

"One has heard so often," he began.

"I know, I know," she said, a little impatiently, and changed the subject.

They talked about the people, the lovable character of the peasants, the extraordinary depth of their religious faiths, their amazing superstitions, and suddenly Malcolm remembered the book in his