Second Stage Lensmen by E.E. Smith

Up to the present, Kinnison's revolution, his self-advancement into the dictatorship, had been perfectly normal; in perfect accordance with the best tenets of Boskonian etiquette. While it would be idle to contend that any of the others of the High Command really approved of it -- each wanted intensely that high place for himself -- none of them had been strong enough at the moment to challenge the usurper effectively and all of them knew that an ineffective challenge would mean certain death. Wherefore each perforce bided his time. Gannel would slip, Gannel would become lax or overconfident -- and that would be the end of Gannel.

They were, however, loyal in their way to Boskonia. They were very much in favor of the rule of the strong and the ruthless. They believed implicitly that might made right. They themselves bowed the knee to anyone strong enough to command such servility from them; in turn they enforced brutally an even more degrading slavishness from those over whom they held in practice, if not at law, the power of life and death.