f course it will cure you."

He got to his feet. He seemed to be in the grip of some powerful
emotion, and I could see that he was determined to control himself. He
walked down the room and stood for some time near the window.

"A gipsy once told me I would die when I was fifty-two. Will you believe
me when I say that that prophecy has weighed upon me more than any
medical opinion?" He turned and came up the room and stood before me.
"Did you ever read German psychology and philosophy?"

"To a certain extent--in translations."

"Well, Dr. Harden, I stepped out of the pages of some of those books, I
think. You've heard of the theory of the Will to Power? The men who
based human life on that instinct were right!" He clenched his hands and
closed his eyes. "This last year has been hell to me. I've been haunted
every hour by the thought of death--just so much longer--so many
thousand days--and then Nothing!" He opened his eyes and sat down
before me. "Are you ambitious, Dr. Harden?"

"I was--very ambitious."

"Do you know what it is to have a dream of power, luring you on day and
night? Do you know what is to see the dream becoming reality, bit by
bit--and then to be given a time limit, when the dream is only half
worked out?"

"I have had my dream," I said. "It is now realized."

"The germ?"

I nodded. He leaned forward.

"Then you are satisfied?"

"I have no desires now."

He did not appear to understand.

"I don't believe yet in your theory of immortality," he said slowly.
"But I do believe that the germ cures sickness. I have had private
reports from Birmingham, and to-morrow I'm going to publish them as
evidence. You see, Harden, I've decided to back you. To-morrow I'm going
to make Gods of you and your Russian associate. I'm going to call you
the greatest benefactors the race has known. I'm going to lift you up to
the skies."

He looked at me earnestly.

"Doesn't that stir you?" he asked.

"No, I told you that I have no desires."

He laughed.

"You're dazed. You must have worked incredibly hard. Wait till you see
your name surrounded by the phrases I will devise you. I can make men
out of nothing." His eyes shone into mine. "I once heard a man say that
the trail of the serpent lay across my papers. That man is in an asylum
now. I can break men, too, you see. Now I want to ask you something."

I watched him with ease, totally uninfluenced by his magnetism--calm and
aloof as a man watching a me