"Romance and sorrow go hand in hand. For the moment my words are more material. You see this cliff?"
She turned to him and stood watching his face.
"This cliff is the core of a kingdom. A granite wedge to hurl feudalism to ruins, to topple tyranny."
She nodded slowly, with a grave self-reservation.
"You have hinted that you are ambitious," she said.
"Ambition would have stormed heaven."
"And your ladder?"
The man made a strong gesture, like one who points a squadron to the charge. His eyes shone with a glint of grimness under his shaggy brows.
"The rabid discontent of the poor, fermenting ever under the crust of custom. The hate of the toiler for the fop and the fool. The iron that lies under the rusting injustice of riches. The storm-cry of a people's vengeance against the tyrant and the torturer."
Yeoland, solemn of face, groped diligently amid her surmises. The man was a visionary by his own showing; it was impossible to mistake him for a fool. Like all beings of uncommon power, he combined imagination with that huge vigour of mind that moves the world. A vast element of strength lay coiled in him, subtle, yet overpowering as the body of some great reptile. The girl felt the gradual magic of his might mesmerising her with the inevitableness of its approach.