At the simplicity of her question, His Highness laughed. “Do you think
for a moment that a one-race army would be enough for me? I may have
been wrong since birth, but I’m right in the safety of numbers. The
hosts below are conscripted from the best bad men since Cain--Europeans
and Americans from Japheth; Arabs, Jews, _et al._, from Shem; Egyptians
and Africans from Ham. Not chosen by God, but by me, and on the
principle that in the heart of every man, be he white or black, red or
yellow, is the incipient germ of fratricide. Might is right--a slogan
of my coinage. Hell over all, say I!”
With face working and eyes blinded by their own flare, he applied
shaking fingers to the speed buttons of the aeromobile.
“Truth is _stronger_ than fiction,” he declared. “Down there you see a
suggestion of the truth about me. But I need more man-made demons to
demonstrate that truth. I must have more, more, and yet more.”
His intensity affected Dolores like the winds which had chilled her to
the soul on her recent trudge through the Valley of Death.
“I depend upon the beast that is in every man, as shown by the way the
most fanatic pacifist will fight when forced over the top. But how to
gain recruits in bulk, now that the World War has failed!”
As they soared directly over the first encampment, he leaned to the
mirror that reflected The Hawk’s revolving eyes and began to count in
numerals strange to his guest the units in that section. Her brain, so
recently finite, grew dizzy in the attempt to follow him.
Evidently he felt gratified by his computations. “Already a creditable
army. Nobody but the Great-I-Am knows the trouble I’ve had recruiting
them and He only because He has been kept so busy trying to block me.
From the first, I’ve counted on wearing Him out--getting Him so tired
that He’ll be willing to let Nature take its course. Looked recently
as though I’d succeeded, but I am beginning to fear--what with peace
blanketing all the bad old predatory instincts and temperance creeping
like a tidal wave over the mortal world--My time is getting short. I
must think--must concentrate.”
As he relapsed into what seemed urgent introspection, a ruddy mist
began to emanate, first from his head, then his body. Open as was the
air-scape and swift their flight, a noxious odor spread.
For a space they alternated tail-spins and nose-dives with loops in
the lurid altitudes. Dolores, from her earth-habit of fear, cried out
against such recklessness.
His Majesty’s dazed look suggested that her protest had recalled him
from some evil spell. The emanations from his body thinned and ceased.
“Too much joy in our ride, my child? You’d forgive my abstraction if
you realized how I am ulcering from the trick the teetotalers put over
on me--and only because I felt too strong to fear their weakness.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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