"Yes."
"Among them do you not think there will be one with a bigger brain than another, who will rob them of freedom some fine morning that he may have a larger share than his proper one for himself? Do you not remember a dog we had at Medina which used to eat as much as all the rest together?"
"Yes, and I remember that they all together pitched on him one day and devoured him."
"Because they were dogs; men would have continued to give in to the greediest."
"Do you set the instincts of animals above the intelligence of man?"
"Forsooth, the examples abound by which to prove it. Among the ancients was one Julius Cæsar, and among the moderns one Oliver Cromwell, who ate up the Roman and the English cake, without anybody snatching many crumbs away from them."
"Well, supposing such an usurper comes, he must die some day, being mortal, but before dying he must do good to even those whom he oppressed; for he would have changed the nature of the upper classes. Obliged to have some kind of support, he will choose the popular as the strongest. To the equality which abases, he will oppose the kind which elevates. Equality has no fixed water mark, but takes the level of him who makes it. In raising the lowest classes he will have hallowed a principle unknown before his time. The Revolution will have made the French free; the Protectorate of another Cæsar or Cromwell will have made them equal."
"What a stupid fellow this is!" said Althotas, starting in his chair. "To spend twenty years in bringing up a child so that he shall came and tell you, who taught him all you knew—'Men are equal.' Before the law, maybe; but before death? how about that? One dies in three days—another lives a hundred years! Men, equals before they have conquered death? Oh, the brute, the triple brute!"
Althotas sat back to laugh more freely at Balsamo, who kept his head lowered, gloomy and thoughtful. His instructor took pity on him.