aid. "No, I did not mean----"

"I would not try to buy you. I want to share with you--these worlds--as
your due. To make myself master of everything, so that you will look to
me and say, 'He is the greatest of all men--I love him'.... Soon I will
be the greatest of all men throughout the ages. And very gentle always,
with you, Lady Elza----"

A buzz came from the disc at his belt. He answered the call--listened to
a voice.

"So? Bring him here." He disconnected. "...very gentle with you, my
Elza----"

His voice drifted away. He seemed waiting; and Elza, her head whirling
with the confusion of it all, sat silent. A moment; then Argo appeared,
driving a half-nude man before him. A native official of Venia, stripped
of his uniform. Argo flung him down in the garden path, where he
cowered, his face ashen, his eyes wild, lips mumbling with terror.

Tarrano barely moved. "So? You tell me he was asleep at the mirrors,
Argo?"

"Master, I could not help it! Since first you made your move in Greater
New York at Park Sixty, I have sat there. Two nights and a day----"

"And you fell asleep without asking for a relief?"

"Master, I----"

"Did you?"

"Yes. I did not realize I was sleeping----"

A gesture to Argo, and the man was flung closer to Tarrano's feet. Elza
shrank away.

"Left a mirror unattended. So?... The wire, Argo." He took the length
of wire, gleaming white-hot, as the leering, gloating Argo turned the
current into it--Tarrano took it, lashed it upon the poor wretch's naked
back and legs. Welts arose, and the stench of burning flesh. A measured
score of the passionless strokes made him writhe and scream in agony.

It turned Elza sick and faint. Shuddering, she crouched there, hiding
her face until the punishment was over and the half-unconscious culprit
was carried away.

"Very gentle with you, my Elza...."

She looked up to find Tarrano smiling at her; looked up and stared, and
wondered what might be her fate with such a man as this.

CHAPTER VII

_Prisoners_

From the garden where Tarrano was talking with Elza, the Mars man
Wolfgar led us to the tower in which we were to be imprisoned. Quite
evidently it had been placed in readiness for us. A tower of several
rooms, comfortably equipped. As we crossed the lower bridge and reached
the main doorway, Wolfgar unsealed a black fuse-box which stood there,
and pulled the relief-switch. The current, barring passage through every
door and windo