“We advance slowly; but we lose nothing that we have won.”
“Then you are the king of sorcerers?” retorted the king, piqued at being of no account in the presence of this man.
The majestic grand-master of the Rosicrucians cast a look on Charles IX. which withered him.
“You are the king of men,” he said; “I am the king of ideas. If we were sorcerers, you would already have burned us. We have had our martyrs.”
“But by what means are you able to cast nativities?” persisted the king. “How did you know that the man who came to your window last night was King of France? What power authorized one of you to tell my mother the fate of her three sons? Can you, grand-master of an art which claims to mould the world, can you tell me what my mother is planning at this moment?”
“Yes, sire.”
This answer was given before Cosmo could pull his brother’s robe to enjoin silence.
“Do you know why my brother, the King of Poland, has returned?”
“Yes, sire.”
“Why?”