human agency.

After a time he saw a strange movement that at first he could not
understand. Then watching, he found that unlit candles were being passed
from line to line, one man leaning forward and tapping the man in front
of him with the candle, the man in front passing it, in his turn,
forward, and so on until at last it reached the altar where it was
lighted and fastened into its sconce. This tapping with the candles
happened incessantly throughout the vast crowd. Henry himself was
tapped, and felt suddenly as though he had been admitted a member of
some secret society. He felt the tap again and again, and soon he seemed
to be hypnotised by the low chant at the altar and the motionless silent
crowd and the dim golden mist. He stood, not thinking, not living, away,
away, questioning nothing, wanting nothing....

He must of course finish with his romantic notion. People pushed around
him, struggling to get out. He turned to go and was faced, he told me,
with a remarkable figure. His description, romantic and sentimental
though he tried to make it, resolved itself into nothing more than the
sketch of an ordinary peasant, tall, broad, black-bearded, neatly clad
in blue shirt, black trousers, and high boots. This fellow stood
apparently away from the crowd, apart, and watched it all, as you so
often may see the Russian peasant doing, with indifferent gaze. In his
mild blue eyes Bohun fancied that he saw all kinds of things--power,
wisdom, prophecy--a figure apart and symbolic. But how easy in Russia it
is to see symbols and how often those symbols fail to justify
themselves! Well, I let Bohun have his fancies. "I should know that man
anywhere again," he declared. "It was as though he knew what was going
to happen and was ready for it." Then I suppose he saw my smile, for he
broke off and said no more.