United States or Poland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As regarded the despatch of the volors to Rome, he had assented by silence, as had the rest of the Council. That was, Snowford had said, a judicial punitive act, regrettable but necessary. Peace, in this instance, could not be secured except on terms of war or rather, since war was obsolete by the sternness of justice.
I imagine they will cause it to be announced that the Cardinal-Protector and the Archbishop, with his coadjutors, will be present in the sacristies. They will double every guard; they will parade volors overhead and then well! in God's hands be the rest." "Do you think the conspirators will attempt it?" "I have no idea," said Percy shortly. "I understand they have alternative plans." "Just so.
"I have counted eight or nine volors," he said; "usually there are only two at this time. I went to look for them." "Which way?" "Three this way and five the other." Monsignor did not dare to ask for an interpretation. But he was aware that the air of tenseness in the room tightened up still further. The General got up. "Southminster," he said, "I think I'll take a stroll outside if I may.
That was a line of action that took the world completely by surprise. People had expected hysteria, argument, and passionate exhortation; disguised emissaries, plots, and protests. There were none of these. It was as if progress had not yet begun, and volors were uninvented, as if the entire universe had not come to disbelieve in God, and to discover that itself was God.
There are lines of volors strung out on every frontier. The Empire means to settle this business without us." "And if it goes wrong?" "My dear Mabel if hell breaks loose " he threw out his hands deprecatingly. "And what is the Government doing?" "Working night and day; so is the rest of Europe. It'll be Armageddon with a vengeance if it comes to war." "What chance do you see?"
It was known at about fifteen-and-a-half o'clock that at least seventy volors had left for Rome, and half-an-hour later that Berlin had reinforced them by sixty more. At midnight, fortunately at a time when the police had succeeded in shepherding the crowds into some kind of order, the news was flashed on to cloud and placard alike that the grim work was done, and that Rome had ceased to exist.
The Campagna since twenty-four hours before had been emptying every living inhabitant into Rome; and there was not a town in Italy, and scarcely in Europe, whence special volors and trains had not carried the fervent to the Feast of the Apostles in Holy Rome.
"But what is it?" he said. "What is the meaning?" Father Bechlin related how he had actually seen one of the troop of volors within five yards of the window; it was crowded with faces, he said, from stem to stern. Then it had soared suddenly, and vanished in whorls of mist. Percy shook his head, saying nothing. He had no explanation. "They are inquiring, I understand," said Father Bechlin again.
So level was the line held by the waiting volors on either side vast barges shining like silver, hung with the great state-cloths of modern days that it appeared as if the eye itself were deceived, as if there were indeed a pavement of crystal, a river of glass, so clear as itself to be unseen, on whose surface floated this navy of a dream such as the world itself had never imagined.
Oliver was in a panic of terror as his mother, half an hour later, ran in with the news that one of the Government volors had fallen in the station square at Brighton just after the 14-1/2 train had discharged its passengers. He knew quite well what that meant, for be remembered one such accident ten years before, just after the law forbidding private volors had been passed.
Word Of The Day