the dark swarmings of mankind. They who have spoken retire one by
one within themselves, absorbed once more in their own mysterious
malady.

But when evening is ready to descend within the valley, a storm
breaks over the mass of Mont Blanc. One may not go forth in such
peril, for the last waves of the storm-wind roll even to the great
veranda, to that harbor where they have taken refuge; and these
victims of a great internal wound encompass with their gaze the
elemental convulsion.

They watch how the explosions of thunder on the mountain upheave the
level clouds like a stormy sea, how each one hurls a shaft of fire
and a column of cloud together into the twilight; and they turn
their wan and sunken faces to follow the flight of the eagles that
wheel in the sky and look from their supreme height down through the
wreathing mists, down to earth.

"Put an end to war?" say the watchers.--"Forbid the Storm!"

Cleansed from the passions of party and faction, liberated from
prejudice and infatuation and the tyranny of tradition, these
watchers on the threshold of another world are vaguely conscious of
the simplicity of the present and the yawning possibilities of the
future.

The man at the end of the rank cries, "I can see crawling things
down there"--"Yes, as though they were alive"--"Some sort of plant,
perhaps"--"Some kind of men"--