e man's
coarse lips. "I ruled the markets. I ruled them so that they obeyed me.
I was the money power of this continent. I did as I chose. So I thought.
Then he came. This man. He did not disturb me. Oh, no. I slept good all
the time. Then I woke. I woke to find I was beaten of ten million
dollars; and that Wall Street, the markets of the world, were laughing
that this schoolmaster, this fool Scotsman from over the water, had
picked my pocket while I slept. It was not the money. It was the laugh.
And he got away. Oh, yes. I tell it now. The market knew of it then.
They laughed. How they laughed. So I sat and thought. I had all. There
was nothing more to have. And then I learned to hate."

The narrowed eyes came back to the face of the man beside the desk.
There was a sharp intake of breath.

"This mill, this Sachigo, was built out of my money. And the man who
built it was the man who robbed me while I slept."

A world of fierce bitterness lay in the final words, and the man
listening realised the enormity of the offence, as this man saw it. But
he was left puzzled.

"But you would have--bought this Sachigo?" he said, said.

Hellbeam's eyes were again turned to the window.

"Oh, yes," he said. "I would have bought. It would bring me to meet this
man. It is that I ask. That only. My hands would close upon him. And I
would see the blood sweat of his heart ooze under them."

Hellbeam had finished. Peterman understood that. The passion had passed
out of his eyes and the veins of his forehead were no longer distended.
He remained gazing at the window.

For some moments the younger man made no attempt to intrude further. He
had little desire to, anyway. Without scruple himself, he still found
little pleasure in probing the heart of this man, who was so powerful in
his own destiny. That which he had witnessed had served only to show him
the delicacy of his own position. He knew that the story had been told
for one reason only. It was to convince him, for the sake of his own
wellbeing in the Skandinavia, that he must make no mistake in the
warfare he must wage against the people of Sachigo. It was for him to
wage the battle with every faculty that was in him; and any failure of
his would mean disaster for himself. This was no commercial warfare. It
was the insane purpose of a monomaniac.

In those silent moments Elas Peterman thought with a rapidity inspired
by the urgency he felt to be driving him. And the fertility o