!--it is too late! He will not save himself--and he does not
care,--he does not care--neither for me nor you!"

She drooped her head against Morgana's shoulder and her eyes closed in
utter exhaustion. Morgana laid her back gently on her pillows, and
pouring a few drops of the cordial she had used before, and of which
she had the sole secret, into a wineglassful of water, held it to her
lips. She drank it obediently, evidently conscious now that she was
being cared for. But she was still restless, and presently she sat up
in a listening attitude, one hand uplifted.

"Listen!" she said in a low, awed tone--"Thunder! Do you hear it? God
speaks!"

She lay down again passively and was silent for a long time. The hours
passed and the day grew into late afternoon, and Morgana, patiently
watchful, thought she slept. All suddenly she sprang up, wide-eyed and
alert.

"What was that?" she cried--"I heard him call!"

Morgana, startled by her swift movement, stood transfixed--listening.
The deep tones of a man's voice rang out loudly and defiantly--

"There shall be no more wars! There can be none! I say so! I am Master
of the World!"

CHAPTER XXV

A brilliant morning broke over the flower-filled gardens of the Palazzo
d'Oro, and the sea, stretched out in a wide radiance of purest blue
shimmered with millions of tiny silver ripples brushed on its surface
by a light wind as delicate as a bird's wing. Morgana stood in her
rose-marble loggia, looking with a pathetic wistfulness at the beauty
of the scene, and beside her stood Marco Ardini, scientist, surgeon and
physician, looking also, but scarcely seeing, his whole thought being
concentrated on the "case" with which he had been dealing.

"It is exactly as I at first told you,"--he said--"The man is strong in
muscle and sinew,--but his brain is ruined. It can no longer control or
command the body's mechanism,--therefore the body is practically
useless. Power of volition is gone,--the poor fellow will never be able
to walk again or to lift a hand. A certain faculty of speech is
left,--but even this is limited to a few words which are evidently the
result of the last prevailing thoughts impressed on the brain-cells. It
is possible he will repeat those words thousands of times!--the oftener
he repeats them the more he will like to say them."

"What are they?" Morgana asked in a tone of sorrow and compassion.

"Strange enough for a man in his condition"--replied Ardin