egan, "take away from men the Secret of Life, so that
they will die, as formerly, when the world was young?"

"When all the world knows the Secret, when even children learn it before
they are capable of walking?" demanded Dalis sarcastically. "You could
only remove knowledge of the Secret from the brains of men by removing
those brains themselves! Your thought is more terrible even than mine,
because it leads to this inescapable conclusion!"

"But supposing for a moment your mad scheme were possible, who should
say whom, of all the earth's people, should be saved, whom sacrificed?"

"What better test could be given than that which I am proposing?" Dalis
had snarled. "Those worthy of being saved would save themselves! Those
who would perish would not be worth saving! As natural, as inescapable
as the law of the survival of the fittest, which has been an axiom of
life since men first crawled out of the slime and asked each other
questions as they caught their first glimpses of the stars and pondered
the reasons for them!"

"But where, then, was there any point in my giving to people the Secret
of Life?"

"Had you paused to think," snapped Dalis, "you would never have done so!
Your lust for power, and for fame, destroyed your foresight!"

* * * * *

"And is it not, Dalis," replied Sarka the First, softly, "for this,
really, that you have come to me? To berate me? To throw at my head mad
schemes impossible of accomplishment? I have always known you for an
enemy, Dalis, because you are envious of what I have accomplished, what
you sense that I will accomplish as time passes!"

"I do not love you, Sarka!" retorted Dalis frankly. "I despise you! Hate
you! But I need the aid of that keen brain of yours! You see, hate you
though I may, I do you honor still. I have something up here," tapping
the dome of his brow, only less lofty than that of Sarka, "which you
lack. You have something I have not, never can attain! But together we
are complements, each of the other, and to the two of us this scheme is
possible!"

"I am very busy, Dalis," Sarka the First had replied coldly. "I must ask
you to leave me! What you propose is impossible, unthinkable!"

"So," retorted Dalis, "you think me mad? You think me incapable of
perfecting this plan about whose details you have not even yet been
informed! You would show me the door as though you were a king and I a
slave--when kings and slaves vanished fr