in consideration of the immense
importance of your secret--which there is no need to disguise from
you--to the Brotherhood, the usual condition of passing through the
Outer Circle will be dispensed with, and you will be trusted as
absolutely as we shall expect you to trust us.

"Whatever funds you then require to manufacture an air-ship on the
plan of your model will be placed at your disposal, and a suitable
place will be selected for the works that you will have to build.
When the ship is ready to take the air you will, of course, be
appointed to the command of her, and you will pick your crew from
among the workmen who will act under your orders in the building of
the vessel.

"They will all be members of the Outer Circle, who will not
understand your orders, but simply obey them blindly, even to the
death. One member of the Inner Circle will act as your second in
command, and he will be as perfectly trusted as you will be, so that
in unforeseen emergencies you will be able to consult with him with
perfect confidence. Now I think I have told you all. What do you
say?"

Arnold was silent for a few minutes, too busy for speech with the
rush of thoughts that had crowded through his brain as Colston was
speaking. Then he looked up at his host and said--

"May I make conditions?"

"You may state them," replied he, with a smile, "but, of course, I
don't undertake to accept them without consultation with my--I mean
with the Executive."

"Of course not," said Arnold. "Well, the conditions that I should
feel myself obliged to make with your Executive would be, briefly
speaking, these: I would not reveal to any one the composition of the
gases from which I derive my motive force. I should manufacture them
myself in given quantities, and keep them always under my own charge.

"At the first attempt to break faith with me in this respect I would
blow the air-ship and all her crew, including myself, into such
fragments as it would be difficult to find one of them. I have and
wish for no life apart from my invention, and I would not survive
it."

"Good!" interrupted Colston. "There spoke the true enthusiast. Go
on."

"Secondly, I would use the machine only in open warfare--when the
Brotherhood is fighting openly for the attainment of a definite end.
Once the appeal to force has been made I will employ a force such as
no nation on earth can use without me, and I will use it as
unsparingly as the armies and fleets engag