ing to pace the room again; "but the man is
not yet born who could accomplish it."

"There are fifty men on earth at this moment who can accomplish it,
and of them the two chief are Englishmen,--yourself and this Richard
Arnold, whose genius has given the Terrorists the command of the air.

"Come, Alan Tremayne! here is a destiny such as no man ever had
before revealed to him. It is not for a man of your nation and
lineage to shrink from it. You have reproached me for using you to
unworthy ends, as you thought them, and with pulling down where I am
not able to build up again. Obey me still, this time of your own free
will and with your eyes open, and, as I have pulled down by your
hand, so by it will I build up again, if the Master of Destiny shall
permit me; and if not, then shall you achieve the task without me.
Now give me your ears, for the words that I have to say are weighty
ones.

"No human power can stop the war that has now begun, nor can any
curtail it until it has run its appointed course. But we have at our
command a power which, if skilfully applied at the right moment, will
turn the tide of conflict in favour of Britain, and if at that moment
the Mother of Nations can gather her children about her in obedience
to the call of common kindred, all shall be well, and the world shall
be hers.

"But before that is made possible she must pass through the fire, and
be purged of that corruption which is even now poisoning her blood
and clouding her eyes in the presence of her enemies. The overweening
lust of gold must be burnt out of her soul in the fiery crucible of
war, and she must learn to hold honour once more higher than wealth,
and rich and poor and gentle and simple must be as one family, and
not as master and servant.

"East and west, north and south, wherever the English tongue is
spoken, men must clasp hands and forget all other things save that
they are brothers of blood and speech, and that the world is theirs
if they choose to take it. This is a work that cannot be done by any
nation, but only by a whole race, which with millions of hands and a
single heart devotes itself to achieve success or perish."

"Brave words, brave words!" cried Tremayne, pausing in his walk in
front of the chair in which Natas sat; "and if you could make me
believe them true, I would follow you blindly to the end, no matter
what the path might be. But I cannot believe them. I cannot think
that you or I and a few follo