"But to get there we must fight our way day after day through millions and millions of mankind."
"It is our only hope. In this crowded land there is no fastness, no shelter. What place is there for us among these multitudes? They who are little can hide from one another, but where are we to hide? There is no place where we could eat, no place where we could sleep. If we fled—night and day they would pursue our footsteps."
A thought came to him.
"There is one place," he said, "even in this island."
"Where?"
"The place our Brothers have made over beyond there. They have made great banks about their house, north and south and east and west; they have made deep pits and hidden places and even now—one came over to me quite recently. He said—I did not altogether heed what he said then. But he spoke of arms. It may be—there—we should find shelter. . . .
"For many days," he said, after a pause, "I have not seen our Brothers. . . . Dear! I have been dreaming, I have been forgetting! The days have passed and I have done nothing but look to see you again. . . . I must go to them and talk to them and tell them of you and of all the things that hang over us. If they will help us, they can help us. Then indeed we might hope. I do not know how strong their place is, but certainly Cossar will have made it strong. Before all this—before you came to me, I remember now—there was trouble brewing. There was an election—when all the little people settle things by counting heads. It must be over now.
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