Three _apaches_ sit crouched in shelter waiting the moment to strike.
One is old and _gaga,_ his ancient fingers splayed on the ground to
support him and his face puckered with the petulance of age. One is a
soft shapeless figure--clearly with small heart for the business, for
he squats there as limp as a sack. One is the true stage conspirator
with a long pendulous nose and narrow eyes. His knife is in his teeth,
and he would clearly like to keep it there, for he has no stomach for a
fight. He will only strike if he can get in a secret blow. The leader
of the gang has the furtive air of the criminal, his chin sunk on his
breast, and his cap slouched over his brows. His right hand holds a
stiletto, his pockets bulge with weapons or plunder, his left hand is
raised with the air of a priest encouraging his flock. And his words
are the words of religion--“God with us.” At the sign the motley crew
will get to work.
It is wholesome to strip the wrappings from grandiose things. Public
crimes are no less crimes because they are committed to the sound
of trumpets, and the chicanery of crowned intriguers is morally the
same as the tricks of hedge bandits. It is the privilege of genius to
get down to fundamentals. Behind the stately speech of international
_pourparlers_ and the rhetoric of national appeals burn the old lust
and greed and rapine. A stab in the dark is still a stab in the dark
though courts and councils are the miscreants. A war of aggression is
not less brigandage because the armies march to proud songs and summon
the Almighty to their aid.
Raemaekers has done much to clear the eyes of humanity. The monarch
of _Felix Austria_, with the mantle of the Holy Roman Empire still
dragging from his shoulders, is no more than a puzzled, broken old
man, crowded in this bad business beside the Grand Turk, against whom
his fathers defended Europe. The preposterous Ferdinand, shorn of his
bombast, is only a chicken-hearted assassin. The leader of the band,
the All Highest himself, when stripped of his white cloak and silver
helmet, shows the slouch and the furtive ferocity of the street-corner
bravo. And the cry “God with us,” which once rallied Crusades, has
become on such lips the signal of the _apache_.