Graham saw the aperture of the ventilator with ghostly snow whirling above it and dark figures moving hastily.

Three knelt on the vane.

Some dim thing--a ladder--was being lowered through the opening, and a hand appeared holding a fitful yellow light.
He had a moment of hesitation.

But the manner of these men, their swift alacrity, their words, marched so completely with his own fears of the Council, with his idea and hope of a rescue, that it lasted not a moment.
And his people awaited him! "I do not understand," he said.

"I trust.