“By a very easy process. Do you know the bird that shrieks farthest from her young ones when the fowler is at hand? I'll follow her example.”
“I'll follow you to the uttermost ends of the earth, Warham!”
“Hush! you forget! Am I not Brother Stevens? Ha! ha! ha! You are not sufficiently reverent, brother. See you no divinity in my look and bearing? Hark you, Ben, I've been a sort of small divinity in the eyes of a whole flock for a month past!”
“You pray?”
“And preach!”
“Ha! ha! ha!—devilish good; but I must see you in order to believe. I must, indeed, Brother Stevens. Why, man, think of it—success in this enterprise will make you head of the fraternity—you will be declared pope: but you must have witnesses!”
“So I think; and hark ye, Ben”—laying a finger on the arm of the other—“I am successful!”
“What! you don't say so! This queen, this princess of Egypt, Cleopatra, Altamira—eh?”
“Is mine—soul and body—she is mine!”
“And is what you say? Come, come, you don't mean that such a splendid woman as you describe—such a genius, poet, painter, musician—beauty too!—you don't mean to say that—”