* * * * *

"All the resources of Nature are at my command thanks to the
illustrious chemists who have been secretly working for the past ten
years to serve me. I, the All-Highest, have been commanded by the
Almighty to scourge the world for its insolence in rejecting me, and
especially the pig-race of Yankees whose pride has grown so great.
Mine is the divinely appointed task to cast down your ridiculous
democracies and re-establish the divine world-order of an Emperor and
his nobility.

"That is why I have chosen, to permit so mean a thing as you to live.
As for the old fool beside you, who thought to stay my power with his
box of tricks--his gas-box is already being analyzed by my chemists,
and in a few hours the trivial secret will be at my disposal."

"And that's just where you're wrong," piped old Luke Evans in his
cracked voice. "That gas can't be analyzed, because it contains an
unknown isotope, and, as for yourself, you're nothing but a daft old
fool, with your tin-horn trumpery!"

For a moment the Emperor stood like a statue, staring at old Luke. The
expression on his face was that of a madman, but a madman through
whose brain a straggling ray of realization has dawned. It was the
look upon his face that held the whole assemblage spellbound. Then
suddenly came intervention.

Through a doorway in the side of the hall came one of the officers in
black. He advanced to the foot of the throne and made a deep, hurried
bow, speaking rapidly in some language incomprehensible to Dick.

The Emperor started, and then a peal of laughter left his lips.

"Pig of a Yankee," he shouted to Dick, "your contemptible navy's now
approaching our shores, with a dirigible scout above it. You shall now
see how I deal with such swine!"

CHAPTER X

_The Tricks of the Trade_

He barked a command, and instantly Dick was seized by two of the
guards, one of whom--the one Dick had knocked down--took the occasion
to administer a buffeting in the process of overcoming him. For the
sight of the honored President of the United States--that kindly old
man straining his eyes to meet Dick's own--in the parti-colored garb
of red and yellow, and chained like a beast below the madman's throne,
again filled Dick with a fury beyond all control.

It was only when he had been half-stunned again by the vicious blows
of his captors, delivered with short truncheons of heavy wood, that at
length he desisted from hi