“And crush you, pigmies,” commented the Supreme Chief in a voice of thunder. “You declaim against poets and you spout fustian. Brother, you have picked up these phrases in some novel you concoct in your garret.”
Marat blushed.
“Do you know what a revolution is?” said the Grand Copt. “I have seen two hundred, and they have tended to nothing because the revolutionists were in too great a haste. You talk of chopping down giant trees. This tree is not an oak but one of those immense redwoods of the far western American forests which I have seen. If they were felled, a horseman starting from the base to avoid the high-up branches would be overtaken and smashed. You cannot wish this. You cannot obtain the warrant from me.”
“I have lived some forty generations of man.”
“Being long-lived, I can be patient. I carry your fate—ay, that of the world in the hollow of my hand. I will not open it to let out the lightnings till I see fit. Let us come down from these sublime hights and walk on the earth.
“Gentlemen, I say with simplicity and full belief, it is not yet time. The King now reigning is the last reflection of the glory of the Great Louis who dazzles still enough to pale your ineffectual fires. A King, he will die royally: of an insolent race but pure-bred. Slay him and that will happen which befel Charles First of England: his executioners will bow to him and courtiers will kiss the ax which lops off his head. You know that England was in too much of a hurry. It is true that Charles Stuart died on the scaffold but the block was a stepping-stone for his son to reach the throne and he died on it.”
“Wait, wait, brothers, for the times are becoming propitious.
“We are sworn to destroy the lilies but we must root them up—not a stalk must be left. But the breath of fate is going to shrivel royalty up to nothing. Draw nearer and hear this—the Dauphiness, though a year wedded—— ”
“Well?” asked the chiefs with anxiety.
“She is still as when she came from her mother’s land.”