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Updated: June 24, 2025
Thus adjured, Thord advanced, and confronted the murmuring, gesticulating crowd of men, some of whom were wrathfully expostulating with Johan Zegota, because he declined to unlock the door of the room and let them out, till he had received his Chief's commands to do so.
"I do not twist my life into a crooked attitude, Johan Zegota," he replied. "If it is crooked, others have twisted it for me! Why should I believe what I hear, since it is the fashion to lie? Why should I accept what I read, since it is the business of the press to deceive the public? And why do you ask me foolish questions?
"Have you only just wakened up from sleep, Paul Zouche?" asked Zegota. "I never sleep," answered Zouche, pushing his hair back from his forehead; "Unless sleep compels me, by force, to yield to its coarse and commonplace persuasion. To lie down in a shirt and snore the hours away! Faugh! Can anything be more gross or vulgar!
"Hear, hear!" shouted Zouche, who had been steadily drinking for the last few moments, "Speak on, man! Whoever heard of a dumb Socialist! Rant rant! Rant and rave! as I do, when the fit is on me! Do I not, Thord? Do I not move you even to tears?" "And laughter!" put in Zegota. "Hold your tongue, Zouche! No other man can talk at all, if you once begin!" Zouche laughed, and drained his glass.
Sergius Thord laid one hand heavily on his shoulder. "When the King when any king does anything useful in the world, then you may hang me with your own hands, Zegota! When did you ever hear, except in myths of the past, of a monarch who cared for his people more than his crown? Tell me that!
"After all," said Zegota deprecatingly, "it is not so much the King whom we were against, as the Government." "Ah! You forget, no doubt," said Von Glauben, "that the King any King is usually a Dummy in the hands of Government, unless, as in the present instance, he chooses to become a living Personality for himself!"
"Well spoken!" said Johan Zegota, looking up from some papers which he, as secretary to the Society, had been docketing for the convenience of Thord's perusal; "But do not forget, brave Lotys, that the very next meeting we hold is the annual one, in which we draw lots for the 'happy dispatch' of traitors and false rulers; and that this year the name of the King is among them!"
A few minutes' quick organisation worked by Leroy and Zegota, and some few other of their comrades sufficed to break up the mob into three sections, and in perfect order they stood blocked for a moment, like the three wings of a great army. Then once more Thord addressed them: "People, you have heard my vow!
Then he in turn mounted the platform, and began in a clear but low voice to call the roll of the members of the Committee. Each man answered to his name in the same guarded tone; all without a single exception were present; and Zegota, having completed the catalogue, turned to Thord for further instructions.
Once on the platform, she seated herself at the lower end of the funereally-draped table; and leaning her head on one hand, seemed lost in thought. Thord took his place at the opposite end, whereupon Johan Zegota moving stealthily to the door, closed it, locked it, and put the key in his pocket.
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