"And you will spill your wine."
"The type of blood; and the blood of martyrs is the seed of the new Commonwealth!"
"But why not take new bottles and save your precious wine?"
"We have none, and the old are at hand."
"They are rotting fast."
"The world cannot wait,—mothers and children starve every day."
"If you die for them it is only a life for a life, and the guilty thrive."
"Some will go down with us to hades!"
Aurelian laughed softly, and rambled vaguely on over the strings of his samosen, making strange music. "Now we will quarrel no more, for we are where we began. Malcolm, if you must go to your death, Vale, I will offer a kid and honey on the altar of Mnemosyne. Go your ways, and leave me to mine; I am aweary of this servile and perishing world, rheumy and gibbering. Here I have my books of the Elect, my fading pictures, my treasures of dead civilisation. This is my monastery, like those of the old Faith that, during the night that came down on the world after the ruin of Rome, treasured as in an ark the seeds of the new life. Here I can gather my Children of Light and bar my doors against the Philistines without, among whom, dear Malcolm, force me not yet to number you. Be lenient with me, accept my hospitality; it will strengthen you for your fight with the windmill that forces the wind of God to grind men and women like grain. In the mean time, it is still the youth of the night, so I will give you more wine—or your favourite beer if you like; I have some good Bavarian. Those four decadents and the poor agnostic there on the floor are happy. I never take the black smoke myself, nor any of you: wise, all of you, but God forbid that I should refuse any guest of mine aught! They, sleeping in opium-dreams, have chosen their way. We will choose another for ourselves."