onally and as calmly as I should
choose one pistol rather than another out of that rack upon the wall;
and I say that rather than have Gregory and his milk-and-water methods
on the Supreme Council, I would offer myself for election--"

His sentence was drowned in a deafening cataract of applause. The faces,
that had grown fiercer and fiercer with approval as his tirade grew more
and more uncompromising, were now distorted with grins of anticipation
or cloven with delighted cries. At the moment when he announced himself
as ready to stand for the post of Thursday, a roar of excitement and
assent broke forth, and became uncontrollable, and at the same moment
Gregory sprang to his feet, with foam upon his mouth, and shouted
against the shouting.

"Stop, you blasted madmen!" he cried, at the top of a voice that tore
his throat. "Stop, you--"

But louder than Gregory's shouting and louder than the roar of the room
came the voice of Syme, still speaking in a peal of pitiless thunder--

"I do not go to the Council to rebut that slander that calls us
murderers; I go to earn it (loud and prolonged cheering). To the priest
who says these men are the enemies of religion, to the judge who says
these men are the enemies of law, to the fat parliamentarian who says
these men are the enemies of order and public decency, to all these I
will reply, 'You are false kings, but you are true prophets. I am come
to destroy you, and to fulfil your prophecies.'"

The heavy clamour gradually died away, but before it had ceased
Witherspoon had jumped to his feet, his hair and beard all on end, and
had said--

"I move, as an amendment, that Comrade Syme be appointed to the post."

"Stop all this, I tell you!" cried Gregory, with frantic face and hands.
"Stop it, it is all--"

The voice of the chairman clove his speech with a cold accent.

"Does anyone second this amendment?" he said. A tall, tired man, with
melancholy eyes and an American chin beard, was observed on the back
bench to be slowly rising to his feet. Gregory had been screaming for
some time past; now there was a change in his accent, more shocking than
any scream. "I end all this!" he said, in a voice as heavy as stone.

"This man cannot be elected. He is a--"

"Yes," said Syme, quite motionless, "what is he?" Gregory's mouth worked
twice without sound; then slowly the blood began to crawl back into his
dead face. "He is a man quite inexperienced in our work," he said, and