Infinite Outside, decided the fate
of the Nation.

That Secret Room was closed to every one. Not even the news-gatherers
could reach it; not even the all-seeing eye of the telephotograph
emblazoned to the world its secrets.

But _was_ it secret?

Perhaps Moyen, the master mobster, smiled when he heard men say so, men
who knew in their hearts that Moyen regarded other earthlings as
earthlings regard children and their toys. Did the eyes of Moyen gaze
even into the depths of the Secret Room, hundreds of feet below even the
documentary-treasure vaults of the Capitol?

* * * * *

No one knew the answer to the question, but the radio, reporting the
return of Kleig, had given the public a distorted vision of an embodied
fear, and in its heart the public answered "Yes!" And what had drowned
out the voice of the radio-reporter?

No wonder that, for many hours, a nation waited in fear and trembling,
eyes filled with dread that was nameless and absolute, for word from the
Secret Room. Fear mounted and mounted as the hours passed and no word
came.

In that room Prester Kleig and the twelve old men, one of whom was the
country's President, held counsel with the man who had come back. But
before the spoken counsel had been held, awesome and awe-inspiring
pictures had flashed across the screen, invented by a third of the old
men, from which the world held no secrets, even the secrets of Moyen.

With this mechanism, guarded at forfeit of the lives of a score of men,
the men of the Secret Room could peer into even the most secret places
of the world. The old men had peered, and had seen things which had
blanched their pale cheeks anew. And when they had finished, and the
terrible pictures had faded out, a voice had spoken suddenly, like an
explosion, in the Secret Room.

"Well, gentlemen, are you satisfied that resistance is futile?"

Just the voice; but to one man in the Secret Room, and to the others
when his numbing lips spoke the name, it was far more than enough. For
not even the wisest of the great men could explain how, as they knew,
having just seen him there, a man could be in Madagascar while his voice
spoke aloud in the Secret Room, where even radio was barred!

The name on the lips of Prester Kleig!

"Moyen! Moyen!"

CHAPTER V

_Monsters of the Deep_

"Gentlemen," said Prester Kleig as he entered the Secret Room, where sat
the scientists and inventive geniuses of t