is friends and
business associates said so. He kept away from his vast business
enterprises and said that he must hold his hands until the other masters
of the world could join with him in the reconstruction of society--proof
indubitable that Goliah's bee had entered his bonnet. To reporters he
had little to say. He was not at liberty, he said, to relate what he had
seen on Palgrave Island; but he could assure them that the matter was
serious, the most serious thing that had ever happened. His final word
was that, the world was on the verge of a turnover, for good or ill he
did not know, but, one way or the other, he was absolutely convinced that
the turnover was coming. As for business, business could go hang. He
had seen things, he had, and that was all there was to it.

There was a great telegraphing, during this period, between the local
Federal officials and the state and war departments at Washington. A
secret attempt was made late one afternoon to board the _Energon_ and
place the captain under arrest--the Attorney-General having given the
opinion that the captain could be held for the murder of the ten
"statesmen." The government launch was seen to leave Meigg's Wharf and
steer for the _Energon_, and that was the last ever seen of the launch
and the men on board of it. The government tried to keep the affair
hushed up, but the cat was slipped out of the bag by the families of the
missing men, and the papers were filled with monstrous versions of the
affair.

The government now proceeded to extreme measures. The battleship
_Alaska_ was ordered to capture the strange yacht, or, failing that, to
sink her. These were secret instructions; but thousands of eyes, from
the water front and from the shipping in the harbour, witnessed what
happened that afternoon. The battleship got under way and steamed slowly
toward the _Energon_. At half a mile distant the battleship blew
up--simply blew up, that was all, her shattered frame sinking to the
bottom of the bay, a riff-raff of wreckage and a few survivors strewing
the surface. Among the survivors was a young lieutenant who had had
charge of the wireless on board the _Alaska_. The reporters got hold of
him first, and he talked. No sooner had the _Alaska_ got under way, he
said, than a message was received from the _Energon_. It was in the
international code, and it was a warning to the _Alaska_ to come no
nearer than half a mile. He had sent the message, t