arms and shield.

THE MAN. Thanks, guest, that you have confided in the honor of my house!
Faithful to our ancient forms, I pledge you in a glass of wine. Your
good health, guest!

He takes a goblet, fills, tastes, and hands it to Pancratius.

PANCRATIUS. If I am not mistaken, this red and blue shield was called a
coat of arms in the language of the Dead; but such trifles have vanished
from the face of the earth.

He drinks.

THE MAN. Vanished? With the aid of God, you will soon look upon them by
thousands!

PANCRATIUS. Commend me to the old noble! always confident in himself,
though without money, arms, or soldiers; proud, obstinate, and hoping
against all hope; like the corpse in the fable, threatening the driver
of the hearse at the very door of the charnel house, and confiding in
God, or at least pretending to confide in Him, when confidence in
himself is no longer even possible!

Pray, Count Henry, give me but one little glimpse of the lightning which
is to be sent from heaven, for your especial benefit, to blast me and my
millions; or show me at least one angel of the thousands of the heavenly
hosts, who are to encamp on your side, and whose prowess is so speedily
to decide the combat in your favor!

He empties the goblet.

THE MAN. You are pleased to jest, leader of the people; but atheism is
quite an old formula, and I looked for something _new_ from the _new
men_!

PANCRATIUS. Laugh, if you will, at your own wit, but my faith is wider,
deeper, and more firmly based than your own. Its central dogma is the
emancipation of humanity. It has its source in the cries of despair
which rise unceasingly to heaven from the hearts of tortured millions,
in the famine of the operatives, the grinding poverty of the peasants,
the desecration of their wives and daughters, the degradation of the
race through unjust laws and debasing and brutal prejudices--from all
this agony spring my new formulas, the creed which I am determined to
establish: _'Man has a birthright of happiness_.' These thoughts are my
god, a god which will give bread, rest, bliss, glory to man!

He fills, drinks, and casts and goblet from him.

THE MAN. I place my trust in that God who gave power and rule, into the
hands of my forefathers!

PANCRATIUS. You trust Him still, and yet through your whole life you
have been but a plaything in the hands of the Devil!

But let us leave such discussions to the theologians, if any s