When we appear among men, scattering gold to satisfy their want, clad
in terrifying power, in dazzling beauty and in immortality of days, will
they not cry, 'Be ye our monarchs and rule over us!'"

"Perhaps," I answered dubiously, "but where wilt thou appear?"

She took a map of the eastern hemisphere which I had drawn and, placing
her finger upon Pekin, said--"There is the place that shall be our home
for some few centuries, say three, or five, or seven, should it take so
long to shape this people to my liking and our purposes. I have
chosen these Chinese because thou tellest me that their numbers are
uncountable, that they are brave, subtle, and patient, and though now
powerless because ill-ruled and untaught, able with their multitudes to
flood the little western nations. Therefore among them we will begin our
reign and for some few ages be at rest while they learn wisdom from us,
and thou, my Holly, makest their armies unconquerable and givest their
land good government, wealth, peace, and a new religion."

What the new religion was to be I did not ask. It seemed unnecessary,
since I was convinced that in practice it would prove a form of
Ayesha-worship, Indeed, my mind was so occupied with conjectures, some
of them quaint and absurd enough, as to what would happen at the first
appearance of Ayesha in China that I forgot this subsidiary development
of our future rule.

"And if the 'little western nations' will not wait to be flooded?"
suggested Leo with irritation, for her contemptuous tone angered him,
one of a prominent western nation. "If they combine, for instance, and
attack thee first?"