“Sh—hush!”
In the answering rasp sounded neither the lilt of Innocentia nor the fearlessness of the love-lad Amor. From out the deep shadows that hugged the palace wall limped the lately-promoted General Cummings. More spectral than seemed consistent with his brief lapse from mortality he looked as he crossed the sill. From his once tranquil eyes shone the hell-haunted look of the archaics. His kindly old face was stretched and blanched.
“What has happened to you, Corporal Sam?” Dolores’ tones sounded her distress at the change in him.
Before replying he drew the window hangings and dimmed the night lamp. “No one must discover I’m here. They say His Highness knows everything that goes on in the palace, but I have risked it. You seem the only chance of saving us.”
From the edge of the bed, Dolores focused her amazement upon the doughty soldier-soul. “Saving you—from what?”
“From his Great Intention.” Old Sam’s voice shivered into a whisper. “You don’t understand? I’ve heard that even the prime minister is not in his confidence. But I hoped that you had wormed it out of him. Since I understood, I haven’t rested day nor night, although there’s little I can do. You have no idea what a hold he’s got on those fight-fiends. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, miss, that is to say ma’am, but from the reports of your séances you’ve turned some mighty powerful mortal minds topsy-turvy. For your own sake, for the sake of God Himself—wouldn’t you be willing to try?”
“To try just what?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.” Stiff from apprehension, the old manes’ lips formed clumsily to his revelation. “His Lowness aims to march into the Fields before Judgment, conquer the Elysiumites and hurl the Great-I-Am from His throne. Don’t you understand yet? He aims to set himself on high as God-of-all!”
“Oh, but he can’t do that! How could he conquer God?”
“You wouldn’t be so sure could you see how those hordes take to training. Every decent impulse is drilled out of them. The kind of frightfulness he’s planning makes a lately mortal brain reel. Ma’am, I calculate that he’s going to win.”