“Easily enough. The victory in view is the regeneration of man, the cost will be some thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands or millions of lives, the assailants are our small but legitimate army. We can say that our friends below are sincerely devoted to us and to our objects; most of the ordinary soldiers of your princes have to be drummed into the ranks either by want or the law. As to the cost, look back on history. How many wars in those annals have been waged for the service of mankind? On how many massacres has one ray of utility shone? Now you must admit that our ideal is a worthy one even if unattainable. At the worst we can shed no more blood than did a Tamerlane or a Napoleon.”
“Certainly the ideal is a grand one, and might, if reliable, be worth the outlay. But how many of your crew appreciate its beauty? Most, I will venture, love destruction for its own sake. Is Schwartz a reformer? Is Thomas?”
“My crew are enthusiasts, Mr. Stanley; nay, if you like, fiends of destruction. Every man is selected by myself. Every man is an outlaw from society, and most have shed blood. They burn to revenge on society the evils which they have received, or, given the appropriate occasion, would receive from it. In this way I secure resolute, fiery, and unflinching soldiers. But do not mistake my meaning. I know how to use these soldiers.”
“I understand.”
“Regard me according to Addison’s simile, as the angel who guides the whirlwind. Look on these men—well, as you will. They are like the creatures generated in decaying bodies. They are the maggots of civilization, the harvest of the dragons’ teeth sown in past centuries, the Frankenstein’s monsters of civilization which are born to hate their father. You have read Milton, of course. Do you recall the passage about Sin and the birth of Death who gnaws his wretched parent’s vitals? It is the Sin of this industrial age which has bred the crew of this death-dealing Attila.”
“But are all these men here morally rotten? The man Schwartz, they call your ‘shadow,’ is he a type?”
“Not at all. Your friend Burnett (who has just startled the Kensington notables) seems sound. He is a madman of the more reputable sort. There is another like him with us, a German of the name of Brandt, a philosopher recruited from the ranks of the Berlin socialists.”
“May I ask you two important questions?”
“Say on.”
“The world says you were once a mere fanatical destroyer. Have you changed your creed?”