"You say--again I see it in your eyes--you say: 'This man claims to be Napoleon, and condescends to become a criminal, a thief, a concocter of plots to entrap and kidnap millionaires.' But listen. Napoleon is unchanged. Should I, a hundred years ago, have hesitated to torture a rich Jew--had I so chosen--to wring from him his millions for the carrying on of my wars? Money I must have. Money I will have, if I am to lead the legions of Labour to victory. These millionaires, these wealthy parvenus whom I hold to ransom, are but the base pawns in the game, from whom I wring the means of carrying on my war. I stop at nothing. I scruple at nothing, so long as I achieve my end. At this moment the mines are laid for a revolution which shall shake England to its centre. I, who hold the strands of the whole network of the conspiracy in my single hand, have not scrupled, in laying and carrying out my plans, to use base tools--thieves and rogues and criminals. What are they to me? I achieve my purpose. That is enough. "And now again I read your thoughts, and this time you say: 'This man, this Cæsar in conception, this criminal in act, preaches humanity and practises inhumanity; this man speaks of the poor with Christ-like compassion, even while his hands are red with his fellow-creatures' blood.' But whom have I slain? _My_ enemies? Never! _My_ enemies, _my_ deadliest enemy, I would not stoop so much as to strike across the face. But God's enemies, the enemies of God's cause, against them I will use all the cunning and craft of my brain, to wipe them off the face of the earth. This negro of whom you have spoken, this man Black Sam--he was slain at my command because he was the enemy of God, the enemy of God's cause. It was he who betrayed us to Grant, the detective. Therefore I slew him. Therefore would I slay a thousand such as he. When I was on earth a hundred years ago, I never counted the cost. I have sent regiments to certain destruction that I might carry out my end. And am I changed? Yes; changed, inasmuch as, to-day, I would sacrifice not a regiment, but an army--not a legion, but a whole nation--so long as I attained my end. Am I not Napoleon? And does Napoleon ever count the cost?" Then, all in a moment, he ceased his restless pacings, starting back and staggering wildly at some sudden thought, as a hit soldier starts and staggers when he feels the bullet. "My God!" he cried piteously, "I am forgetting! This man, this young Grant whom to-night I killed, thinking him to be his brother, was no enemy of the Cause! My hands are red with innocent blood. I have done murder! I have slain an innocent man. Ah! if he have wife and child--a wife whom I have made a widow, a child whom my hands have orphaned! My God! My God! Have pity on them! Protect them, comfort them, for I Thy servant have done this thing. I have taken innocent blood!"