ed to master his
emotion. At last he said:

"I am prepared to offer you terms, Nathaniel Lee, in accordance with
my promise."

"I'll make no terms with murderers," replied Nat bitterly.

* * * * *

Axelson stood looking at him. His great chest rose and fell. Suddenly
he put out one great hand and clapped Nat on the shoulder.

"Wise men," he said, "recognize facts. Within three weeks I shall be
the undisputed ruler of Earth. Whether of a desert or of a cowed and
submissive subject-population, rests with the Earth men. I have never
been on Earth, for I was born on Eros. My mother died at my birth. I
have never seen another human woman until to-day."

Nat looked at him, trying to follow what was in Axelson's mind.

"My father fled to Eros, a little planet seventeen miles in diameter,
as we have found. He called it a heavenly paradise. It was his
intention to found there a colony of those who were in rebellion
against the tyrants of Earth.

"His followers journeyed to the Moon and brought back Moon women for
wives. But there were no children of these unions. Later there were
dissensions and civil war. Three-fourths of the colony died in battle
with one another.

"I was a young man. I seized the reins of power. The survivors--these
old men--were disillusioned and docile. I made myself absolute. I
brought Moon men and women to Eros to serve us as slaves. But in a few
years the last of my father's old compatriots will have died, and thus
it was I conceived of conquering Earth and having men to obey me. For
fifteen years I have been experimenting and constructing apparatus,
with which I now have Earth at my mercy.

"But I shall need assistance, intelligent men who will obey me and aid
me in my plans. That is why I saved you and the other officers of
your ether-lines. If you will join me, you shall have the highest post
on Earth under me, Nathaniel Lee, and those others shall be under
you."

* * * * *

Axelson paused, and, loathing the man though he did, Nat was conscious
of a feeling of pity for him that he could not control. He saw his
lonely life on Eros, surrounded by those phantom humans of the past,
and he understood his longing for Earth rule--he the planetary exile,
the sole human being of all the planetary system outside Earth,
perhaps, except for his dwindling company of aged men.

"To-day, Nathaniel Lee," Axelson went on, my life was recast