Many men would work upon it for many years. It would be
set in a great dome of beaten gold, wonderfully carved and equipped
with gates of opal and crusted sapphire. In the middle would be
hollowed out a chapel presided over by an altar of iridescent,
decomposing, ever-changing radium which would burn out the eyes of any
worshipper who lifted up his head from prayer--and on this altar there
would be slain for the amusement of the Divine Benefactor any victim
He should choose, even though it should be the greatest and most
powerful man alive.
In return he asked only a simple thing, a thing that for God would be
absurdly easy--only that matters should be as they were yesterday at
this hour and that they should so remain. So very simple! Let but the
heavens open, swallowing these men and their aeroplanes--and then
close again. Let him have his slaves once more, restored to life and
well.
There was no one else with whom he had ever needed: to treat or
bargain.
He doubted only whether he had made his bribe big enough. God had His
price, of course. God was made in man's image, so it had been said: He
must have His price. And the price would be rare--no cathedral whose
building consumed many years, no pyramid constructed by ten thousand
workmen, would be like this cathedral, this pyramid.
He paused here. That was his proposition. Everything would be up to
specifications, and there was nothing vulgar in his assertion that it
would be cheap at the price.
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