' 'I have marched with my
bloody sword, and the raven has followed me. Furiously we fought; the
fire passed over the dwellings of men; we slept in the blood of those who
kept the gates_.'"
"But do you feel it, Vance?" she cried, her hand flashing out and resting
on his arm.
"I begin to feel, I think. The north has taught me, is teaching me. The
old thing's come back with new significance. Yet I do not know. It
seems a tremendous egotism, a magnificent dream."
"But you are not a negro or a Mongol, nor are you descended from the
negro or Mongol."
"Yes," he considered, "I am my father's son, and the line goes back to
the sea-kings who never slept under the smoky rafters of a roof or
drained the ale-horn by inhabited hearth. There must be a reason for the
dead-status of the black, a reason for the Teuton spreading over the
earth as no other race has ever spread. There must be something in race
heredity, else I would not leap at the summons."
"A great race, Vance. Half of the earth its heritage, and all of the
sea! And in threescore generations it has achieved it all--think of it!
threescore generations!--and to-day it reaches out wider-armed than ever.
The smiter and the destroyer among nations! the builder and the
law-giver! Oh, Vance, my love is passionate, but God will forgive, for
it is good. A great race, greatly conceived; and if to perish, greatly
to perish! Don't you remember:
"'_Trembles Yggdrasil's ash yet standing; groans that ancient tree, and
the Jotun Loki is loosed.
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