Sergius Thord looked round upon the seething mass below him, with a
strange sense of power and of triumph. He--even he--who could claim to
be no more than a poor Thinker, speaker and writer,--had won these
thousands to his command!--he had them here, willing to obey his
lightest word,--ready to follow his signal wheresoever it might take
them! His eyes glowed,--and the light of a great and earnest
inspiration illumined his strong features.
"You call for Carl Perousse!" he said; "Yonder he dwells!--in the regal
house he has built for himself out of the sweating work of the poor!" A
fierce yell from the populace and an attempt at a rush, was again
stopped by the speaker's uplifted hand; "Wait, friends--wait! Think for
a moment of the result of action, before you act! Suppose you pulled
down that palace of fraud; suppose your strong hands righteously rent
it asunder;--suppose you set fire to its walls,--suppose you dragged
out the robber from his cave and slew him here, before sunrise--what
then? You would make of him a martyr!--and the hypocritical liars of
the present policy, who are involved with him in his financial
schemes,--would chant his praises in every newspaper, and laud his
virtues in every sermon! Nay, we should probably hear of a special
'Memorial Service' being held in our great Cathedral to sanctify the
corpse of the vilest stock-jobbing rascal that ever cheated the
gallows! Be wiser than that, my friends! Do not soil your hands either
with the body of Carl Perousse or his ill-gotten dwelling.
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