“I can only offer the outlines of my plan,” resumed the old man, returning to his place, “because, at such a time, we must trust as much to the spontaneous instincts of our people as to a detailed scheme which may go wrong. But it seems to me that it is essential first to enter into communication with Lembken. We will offer him his palace, perhaps, and an untroubled life hereafter. It is a hard compromise, but there seems no other way, for Sanson must be destroyed, and everything depends on Hancock. “Five days hence, when Sanson summons the people into the Temple, as many as possible of our men will assemble there, with Ray rods beneath their tunics. Arnold will advance and challenge Sanson. We shall spring forward, seize him, possess ourselves of the cylinder, assume possession of the Temple buildings, and set up our government. Meanwhile the airscouts will take possession of the barracks and Ray artillery.” Here I interposed. “Is this the only way?” I asked. “Are there not annual elections? Would it not be possible—” I was unprepared for the outburst of bitter laughter that answered me. “Do you really believe, Arnold,” asked David, “that anything can be done like that? Even in your other life, history—the history that is not taught—informs me that the election of popular representatives had become farcical, especially in the home of democracy, America, through the refusal to permit unauthorized candidacies, through the demand for large sums of money to be deposited as a preliminary, by ballots drowned with names of unknown men, representing nobody knew whom, and fifteen to twenty feet in length; by ruffians at the polls—a device much used in Rome when she started on the democratic down-grade that led to tyranny; by stuffed ballots and lying counts, and voting machines ... in short, Arnold, we have so far improved upon those crude devices that the ballot is now the strongest weapon in our masters’ hands. And when freedom has been restored it will never be seen again. We shall never count heads, except among small bodies of committees, and the days of so-called representative government will never recur so long as men remain free.” It was evident that his words had touched their imaginations in some way unknown to me, for they sprang to their feet and cheered him wildly. I learned afterward that all the laws, the most subversive of human rights, all the most fearful promulgations of Sanson were put to the farcical test of public approbation. The democratic State had killed itself, as it always does, but the shell remained to protect the tyranny that followed, as it always does, too. Before the noise had quite subsided, Jones, who had come in quietly, stood up in the midst of the assembly. “The plan to seize the Ray artillery is impossible,” he said bluntly. “Why?” demanded a dozen voices.