“Silence!” said the person addressed; “all are strangers here!” And then turning to Dhoula Bel, with whom he appeared quite familiar, this person said to him, “At last?”
“At last!” echoed the latter; whereupon the two new comers helped themselves to seats.
The whole affair had gone thus far so directly opposite to all my calculations; events had taken such sudden and totally unexpected turns, that I ceased to marvel at this new game of cross-purposes, but determined to watch the results carefully, whatever they might be. Of course I expected that the new comer would now take the lead of affairs. But no; for Dhoula Bel, as I shall henceforth call him, addressed the shorter of the two intruders as follows:
“Why do you, too, seek to thwart me? Many years ago I found you a student of magic in your lonely prison, whither you had been consigned because you had failed on two occasions. I rescued you, gave you liberty, influence, power, prestige, and seated you firmly on the proudest throne on earth; I have made you famed and feared; I have humbled Britain in your name; for you I have broken the power of ages—the Papacy; for you I have severed Austria, and built a new empire on the earth. For you I have fomented the most awful war the world has ever seen, and have divided a nation of brothers into two parties, each thirsting for the other’s blood; and while you have been the silent automaton, I have prompted your speech and moved the wires that govern the world, asking nothing whatever in return, and yet you are here to thwart me who have ever been your friend. Why is this?”
“I admit—nothing. I am a man of Destiny!”
“Shall I reveal it?”
“I care not.”
“Well, I forbear; but let this sleeper tell it.”
“I am content. Interrogate him. This is the hour, and this the scene for which I long have waited. Let the oracle speak.”
“Listen to me,” said the taller of the two intruders. “Ye have both been proxies of a power beyond us all; and even as I, the Stranger, have foiled each of ye, yet my action was decreed. The drama of ages may end to-day. Not one of us can read his own future; there is but one on earth who can read it, and there is but one hour in which it may be done. That person is here; that hour has come. Not with the magnetic afflatus of puling, babbling somnambules; not with the boastful confidence of self-styled explorers of mythical Summer Lands, or imaginary spheres; but with a vision, simple, pure and accurate, shall yonder sleeper sweep the horizon of the future, and reveal it. Therefore let there be quietude and peace, while the mystic scroll is being read.”