"I!" said the Count with a smile that caused the dying man to freeze with dread. "I prevent Trascoletto from slaying you, at the moment when you had raised a knife against me – in vain, for no hobbite possesses a weapon that can hurt me! yes, perhaps had I found you humble and repentant, I would have prevented Trascoletto from slaying thee, but I found thee proud and sanguinary, and I let be accomplished the will of the Valards and the One who is beyond Valineur and ever shall be."
"I do not believe these Eldarin lies!" cried Buttrebeurrousse. "You do not believe either! You lie! You lie!"
"There is a Providence," said Monte Fato. "And the proof is that you lie before me dying and renouncing the Old Hope of our forebears, while I stand before you alive, strong, healthy, and endued with unlimited and irresistible power, joining my hands in prayer before those in whom you seek to disbelieve, and in whom you believe from the depths of your heart. Did not Pierre-Jacques write that Providence assured that the hobbites died not upon Monte Fato, but merely enacted a scene of cheap suspense? Did not Providence bring them to the forest of Fangornes, where they speculated in the furniture industry?"
"But who are you, then?"
"Look well upon me," said Monte Fato, removing his elven disguise, including the startlingly realistic elf-ears in the shape of maple-leaves.
