“No! The Great-I-Am would not let him.”
At the girl-shade’s vehemence the old soul waggled his head, in his eyes the shadow of horrors that might not be forgot.
“You’ve seen wrong conquer right on Earth, or you wouldn’t be here. I’ve lost all hope unless—From what I hear I wasn’t so far off about his having a weakness for you. In camp every officer has his joke about the modern Delilah that’s destroying the Destroyer. All Gehenna is talking over his neglect of affairs of state to amuse you with shows and such. Not once of late has he been to most of the sham battles that he used to review daily.”
“I am afraid you overrate——”
“Pardon me, ma’am, but that’s the best. The worst can’t be overrated. You see, they call him the Hope of Hell. His hold on the hordes is that, if they drive on to victory in the great offensive, they win eternal release. They fight for themselves, not him. If they lose, they’ll be the first cast into the bottomless pit forever and ever, amen. If they win, he’ll give them rank and estates in the new autocracy of universal, everlasting, licensed crime. I don’t fear for myself so much. I and even you might sink low enough to get by without exciting suspicion that we’re unsympathetic. It’s the Elysiumites that are going to suffer. Miss, can’t you imagine what a Satanic victory would mean to a gentle spirit like——”
To hide his emotion Old Sam covered his face with both hands.
“My Mary Gertrude never was mistreated in her life. But I wouldn’t put it past these helliot hordes to——”
Dolores shuddered. “The damned masters and the blessed their slaves?”
“You begin to understand. Isn’t there someone up there that you feel grateful to—someone you’d hate to see——”
“My mother died to give me life,” the spirit-girl breathed. “And my father must be with her. He’s not down here. Intemperance, you know, is considered a disease, not a crime, in the eyes of men. And then there’s little Jack Cabot. He seemed really to trust every word I told him about his reward if he did what was right. I couldn’t bear to see poor, crippled Jack——”