He raised his hand and drew it lightly across his neck.
"Snap!"
The Red Devil laughed gloatingly. "Then it wouldn't just be a matter of falling into a coma for a few days and waking up to crawl out of a coffin. Once your head's off, you've got a scar the size of a bowl, and on an occasion like that, Arthur, even I would have no way to stitch you back together. If you'd been born in France, you'd most likely already be a single line of small print at the base of a monument."
At this point, Agares cleared his throat and, with solemn, mock-mournful gravity, intoned, "Here lies—Arthur Hastings, friend of liberty, sympathizer of the people, an upright citizen who brought honor to France, a brave soul opposed to all tyranny. For attempting to comprehend both liberty and order at the same time, he was branded an enemy of the people, arrested by the committee for public safety on such-and-such a day in 1793, and executed on the morrow."
