“Now, let us apply this teaching of history.  I propose that after this outbreak is over we shall order the construction of ten thousand more of these air-vessels, and this will furnish us an excuse for sending a large force of apprentices to the present command to learn the management of the ships.  We will select from the circle of our relatives some young, able, reliable man to command these new troops.  We will then seize upon the magazine of bombs and arrest the officers and men.  We will charge them with treason.  The officers we will execute, and the men we will send to prison for life; for it would not be safe, with their dangerous knowledge, to liberate them.  After that we will keep the magazine of bombs and the secret of the poison in the custody of men of our own caste, so that the troops commanding the air-ships will never again feel that sense of power which now possesses them.”

These plans met with general approval.

“But what are we to do with the coming outbreak?” asked one of the councilors.

“I have thought of that, too,” replied the Prince.  “It is our interest to make it the occasion of a tremendous massacre, such as the world has never before witnessed.  There are too many people on the earth, anyhow.  In this way we will strike such terror into the hearts of the canaille that they will remain submissive to our will, and the domination of our children, for centuries to come.”

“But how will you accomplish that?” asked one.

“Easily enough,” replied the Prince.  “You know that the first step such insurgents usually take is to tear up the streets of the city and erect barricades of stones and earth and everything else they can lay their hands on.  Heretofore we have tried to stop them.  My advice is that we let them alone—­let them build their barricades as high and as strong as they please, and if they leave any outlets unobstructed, let our soldiers close them up in the same way.  We have then got them in a rat-trap, surrounded by barricades, and every street and alley outside occupied by our troops.  If there are a million in the trap, so much the better.  Then let our flock of Demons sail up over them and begin to drop their fatal bombs.  The whole streets within the barricades will soon be a sea of invisible poison.  If the insurgents try to fly they will find in their own barricades the walls of their prison-house; and if they attempt to scale them they will be met, face to face, with our massed troops, who will be instructed to take no prisoners.  If they break into the adjacent houses to escape, our men will follow from the back streets and gardens and bayonet them at their leisure, or fling them back into the poison.  If ten millions are slain all over the world, so much the better.  There will be more room for what are left, and the world will sleep in peace for centuries.

“These plans will be sent out, with your approval, to all cities, and to Europe.  When the rebellion is crushed in the cities, it will not take long to subdue it among the wretched peasants of the country, and our children will rule this world for ages to come.”