"We are prepared to die—"
"We are prepared to die—"
"To free those who come after us."
"To free those who come after us," the Sons repeated.
Anstruther clapped his hands. Instantly, in unison, the Sons sank down where they had stood and lay upon the floor, resting their faces torpidly upon their heavy arms, and instantly they were asleep, some forty of them lying in a grotesque ragged row with Anstruther still standing in their midst, though silent now, his blue eyes peering down at O'Hara upon the bunk.
"They are like newborn infants," he said finally, a strange tenderness in his voice. "They drop to sleep at once, O'Hara, forgetting the danger of their future, oblivious of the horror of their past, slipping down into the sweet senselessness that their exhaustion craves. Do you know how long we worked to reach this corridor?"
O'Hara said, "They don't know what danger is. But you do, Anstruther."
"Six days and six nights without stopping to rest, if time down here were measurable," Anstruther continued raptly. "Working all that time, searching endlessly, sure that at last they were nearing Stephen Bryce, yet when again they realized that once more I had failed them, they sank down to sleep as you saw them do, trusting me, O'Hara, to lead them past this failure finally to triumph."
"Anstruther, you're mad."
The pale eyes closed. "Is it mad to work against the worst tyranny the earth has ever known? Then I am mad."