helped to commit yourself. But now I have only one
ambition left--to get square with you. I haven't
decided yet how I shall do it, or when, or where it
shall be done. If I had so decided I would not tell
you, so it makes no difference.

"But I have been a hard student, Nick Carter, of
many things. I have had good instructors in the
science of mixing and using poisons; there is no
person living to-day, man or woman--yourself
included--who is a better marksman than I am with
firearms; there is no person, man or woman, who is
more adept to-day in the use of all weapons than I
am. This is not boasting; it is fact.

"Moreover, I have the power to appear in many
guises--disguises you might call them. In one or
more of them--perhaps in many of them--I shall
appear to you, and when you are least expecting it I
shall strike.

"Don't think by that that I mean to strike you dead.
That would not be making you suffer enough; but I
shall find other and better ways in which to
strike--ways that will make you suffer and realize
what you did when you made me your enemy, and made
me hate you as I do.

"And another thing; I have already set to work to
bring together, as rapidly as I can find them,
people who have criminal records and who have reason
to hate you as I do; people whom you have pursued as
you have pursued me; those whom you have sent to
prison; those whose careers you have interrupted;
those you have threatened; and those who have cause
for holding a grudge against you.

"I have sought many of those, and I have found many.
I am still seeking others, and I shall find more;
and when I have got together enough of them, and
have selected from that number those whom I deem
most available for my purpose and competent to carry
out my directions as I shall give them, I shall
organize them into a Band of Hatred, the sole object
of which shall be your undoing and, ultimately, your
death.

"You have preyed too long already upon that class
of humanity to which I belong, and from our
standpoint your position is much the same as is our
position from yours.

"You know me well enough, Nick Carter, to know that
from this moment forward you will never be safe from
danger for one moment of your life; whether you are
sleeping or waking; whether you are afloat or
ashore; whether you are quartered in the seclusion
of your own study at home, or are abroad upon the
streets of the city.

"You know that I do not threaten idly.