As the last of the five visitors passed into the house there came the sound of the bolting and barring of the entrance door, and the final operation was completed just as the first streak of dawn transformed the eastern horizon, and brought forth the waking chorus of the wild fowl upon the lake.
The room was bare of all ordinary furnishings. The brick walls were cracked and decayed and discoloured with damp patches. It was a windowless apartment containing the rusted boiler and gear of a steam-heat furnace. In one corner lay a small quantity of anthracite coal and a rusted shovel, and the concrete floor of the place was a-litter with rubbish and damp patches, and odds and ends of old packing-cases clearly left there for the original purpose of kindling.
The place was lit by an oil lamp suspended on a hook in one of the timber joists supporting the floor of the house above, and by its dim, yellow light four white-robed figures, with their sugar-loaf hoods, pierced with eye-holes, were revealed lounging on such of the upturned packing-cases as afforded reasonable security. A fifth was standing, leaning in his immaculate garment against the rusted side of the derelict furnace.
It was a spectacle for humour to witness these queer, ghostly figures in their secret haunt, holding solemn conclave in a cellar which in ordinary life probably nothing on earth would have induced any of them to enter. But their purpose was utterly and completely serious. They formed the Supreme Executive of the “Council of the Northern Lights,” which was the whole control of the great body of the men of the Aurora Clan.
The big man at the furnace was clearly the leader and prime moving spirit of the organisation, and he was talking in the cold, hard fashion which so much suggested his position. His whole manner was that of keen command, but for all the coldness of his tone there was neither roughness of language nor the least vaunting display of authority.
“We needed this council right away,” he said. “We need to take a clear decision before the sun gets up. That’s why I sent you boys word when maybe you were yearning to make good the sleep you’re needing. We’ve had a busy night. And I reckon, as a result of it, we’ve a busy time in the future.”