As luck would have it, one of the little angels encircling the prophet's throne overheard the elder. Her eyes stretched, and her mouth dropped open.

"Daid? Is she really and truly daid?"

"Hush, child," Sweet Prophet said anxiously, but it was too late.

A spectator had heard her-a big bull-voiced man wearing purple suspenders over a yellow shirt.

"Great jumping Jehoshaphat, she ain't in no trance!" he shouted in a voice that carried above the marching brass of the band. "She is plumb dead!"

"Shut up, fool!" Elder Jones shouted. "Do you want to panic everybody?"

But the damage was done. Word ran through the crowd like quicksilver that the converted woman who had drunk of the holy water had dropped dead.

Pandemonium broke loose. Emotions already ignited by religious fervor skyrocketed in terror. The excitable people began milling and screaming and fighting one another in animal panic.

Sweet Prophet knew he had to do something quick to avert catastrophe. It was the most desperate situation he had ever faced in his long and checkered career as a revivalist. It was worse even than the time he had been accused of raping three twelve-year-old girls.

His whole career hung in the balance. The next twenty minutes would determine the fate of his cult, which had taken him twenty years to build up. Not only his career as an evangelist, but his personal fortune was at stake. He didn't know what he was worth, but his followers, along with the press, insisted on calling him a multimillionaire. And it had been to his advantage to nurture this legend. His followers referred to his millions with personal pride. They boasted that he was richer than Father Divine, richer than Daddy Grace. Religious people love a winner, he had learned. By that they knew that God had blessed him. He rode around in a royal purple Rolls Royce with a gold plated radiator; in the winter he wore an overcoat made of ranch mink; he wore a diamond ring on each finger and diamonds in his shoes; he maintained a French-type wine cellar stocked with vintage wines and champagnes that he paraded for effect, although he never drank himself. All this might go by the board if it was discovered that the water he had blessed had poisoned one of his converts.