aring radium in quantities hitherto unknown from
the vast pitchblend deposits of Ho-Nan--which industry we control. He
visited China arrayed in his shroud, and he travelled in a handsome
Egyptian sarcophagus purchased at Sotherby's on behalf of a Chinese
collector."

Fo-Hi stood up and crossed to the hissing furnace. He busied himself
with some obscure experiment which proceeded there, and:

"Your own state-room will be less romantic, Dr. Stuart," he said,
speaking without turning his head; "possibly a packing-case. In brief,
that intellectual giant who achieved to much for the Sublime Order--my
immediate predecessor in office--devised a means of inducing
artificial catalepsy----"

"My God!" muttered Stuart, as the incredible, the appalling truth
burst upon his mind.

"My own rather hazardous delay," continued Fo-Hi, "is occasioned in
some measure by my anxiety to complete the present experiment. Its
product will be your passport to China."

Carrying a tiny crucible, he returned to the table.

Stuart felt that his self-possession was deserting him. Madness
threatened ... If he was not already mad. He forced himself to speak.

"You taunt me because I am helpless. I do not believe that those men
have been spirited into China. Even if it were so, they would die, as
I would die, rather than prostitute their talents to such mad infamy."

Fo-Hi carefully poured the contents of the crucible into a flat
platinum pan.

"In China, Dr. Stuart," he said, "we know how to _make_ men work! I
myself am the deviser of a variant of the unduly notorious _kite_
device and the scarcely less celebrated 'Six Gates of Wisdom.' I term
it The Feast of a Thousand Ants. It is performed with the aid of
African driver ant, a pair of surgical scissors and a pot of honey.
I have observed you studying with interest the human skeleton yonder.
It is that of one of my followers--a Nubian mute--who met with an
untimely end quite recently. You are wondering, no doubt, how I
obtained the frame in so short a time? My African driver ants, Dr.
Stuart, of which I have three large cases in a cellar below this room,
performed the task for me in exactly sixty-nine minutes."

Stuart strained frenziedly at his gyves.

"My God!" he groaned. "All I have heard of you was the merest
flattery. You are either a fiend or a madman!"

"When you are enlisted as a member of the Sublime Order," said Fo-Hi
softly, "and you awaken in China, Dr. Stuart--you will work