"You have talked with him?"
"Oh, yes; last night for some time. He has great ideas—too great, I fear, to be practicable."
"Then you don't believe...."
"That he can destroy armies and all that?" and Chevrial laughed lightly. "My dear M. Webster, do you?"
"No," said Dan, slowly, "I don't suppose I do. It's too much to believe—without proof!"
"Assuredly," agreed his companion; "no one would believe it without proof—absolute proof." Then he leaned closer. "To me he made no such absurd claim, but from the way he talked—from his grandiose ideas, his strange philosophy, his fabulous hopes for humanity—I formed the opinion that the man is mad—not wholly mad, you understand, but touched, in one corner of the brain, by a wild hallucination. His daughter, naturally, believes in him. She is a most attractive girl. Polish women are always attractive, at least when they are young. There is, in their faces, in their eyes, an appearance of tragedy, of mystery, which piques the imagination. And they are all great patriots—it is born in the blood—oh, far greater patriots than the men. I have travelled in Poland," he added, seeing Dan's glance; "my business sometimes calls me there."
"And is there really such oppression as Miss Vard described?"
"I do not know what she told you—it was only at the end she raised her voice; but she could not exaggerate the sufferings of her people. They are little better than slaves. All careers are closed to them, and over them constantly is the shadow of Siberia."
"You mean they are banished sometimes?"
"They are banished often—for one year, two years, three years. And they are compelled to walk to and from the place of banishment. It takes a year sometimes. I knew a man who returned home one day to find a Cossack attacking his daughter. There was a struggle, and the Cossack shot the man in the leg. The wound festered and the leg was amputated; then the man was sentenced to the mines at Yakutsk. It was I know not how many thousand miles—it took him two years to walk there on his wooden leg—walking, walking every day."