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 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_.