before leaping into the saddle."

"What horsemen are these?" asked Argensola.

"Those which go before the Beast."

The two friends thought this reply as unintelligible as the preceding
words. Desnoyers again said mentally, "He is drunk," but his curiosity
forced him to ask, "What beast is that?"

"That of the Apocalypse."

There was a brief silence, but the Russian's terseness of speech did not
last long. He felt the necessity of expressing his enthusiasm for the
dreamer on the island rock of Patmos. The poet of great and mystic
vision was exerting, across two thousand years, his influence over this
mysterious revolutionary, tucked away on the top floor of a house in
Paris. John had foreseen it all. His visions, unintelligible to the
masses, nevertheless held within them the mystery of great human events.

Tchernoff described the Apocalyptic beast rising from the depths of the
sea. He was like a leopard, his feet like those of a bear, his mouth
like the snout of a lion. He had seven heads and ten horns. And upon
the horns were ten crowns, and upon each of his heads the name of a
blasphemy. The evangelist did not say just what these blasphemies were,
perhaps they differed according to the epochs, modified every thousand
years when the beast made a new apparition. The Russian seemed to be
reading those that were flaming on the heads of the monster--blasphemies
against humanity, against justice, against all that makes life sweet
and bearable. "Might is superior to Right!" . . . "The weak should not
exist." . . . "Be harsh in order to be great." . . . And the Beast in
all its hideousness was attempting to govern the world and make mankind
render him homage!

"But the four horsemen?" persisted Desnoyers.

The four horsemen were preceding the appearance of the monster in John's
vision.

The seven seals of the book of mystery were broken by the Lamb in the
presence of the great throne where was seated one who shone like jasper.
The rainbow round about the throne was in sight like unto an emerald.
Twenty-four thrones were in a semicircle around the great throne, and
upon them twenty-four elders with white robes and crowns of gold. Four
enormous animals, covered with eyes and each having six wings, seemed
to be guarding the throne. The sounding of trumpets was greeting the
breaking of the first seal.

"Come and see," cried one of the beasts in a stentorian tone to the
vision-seeing poet. . . . And the first horsema