John watched the progress of the storm with strange elation, quietly walked through the blinding, drenching rain to the barn, and drew from the forks of two trees a lightning-rod about thirty feet long which Norman had finally made for him in answer to his constant pleading. The tip of the rod was pointed with a dozen shining spikes. John seized this rod, held it straight over his head, and began to march with firm step around the lawn. He walked with slow, measured tread past the two big colony houses to the amazement of the people who stood at the windows watching the storm. He held his lightning-rod as a soldier a musket on dress-parade, his eyes fixed straight in front. As he passed through the floral court between the two buildings he burst into an old Methodist song, his cracked voice ringing in weird and plaintive tones with the sigh and crash of the wind among the foliage of the trees and shrubbery: "I want to be an angel, And with the angels stand, A crown upon my forehead, A harp within my hand." Over and over he sang this stanza with increasing fervour as he marched steadily on through every path around the buildings, his rain-soaked clothes clinging to his flesh and flopping dismally about his thin legs. As the storm suddenly lifted he stopped in front of the kitchen, dropped his rod, and sank with a groan to his knees taking up again his old refrain: "How long, O Lord, how long?" Old Bob ran out and shook him. "Name er God, man, what de matter wid you? Is you gone clean crazy? What you doin' monkeyin' wid dat lightnin'-rod?" John lifted his drooping head and sighed: "You see, neighbour, I don't like to kill myself. It's against my religion. It seems like taking things out of the hands of God. But I thought the Lord, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, might be kind enough to spare me a bolt if I lifted my rod and put myself in the way. If he had only seen fit to do it, I'd be at rest now in the courts of glory!" "Dis here's a sad worl', brudder," Bob said comfortingly. "'Pears lak ter me de Lawd doan' lib here no mo'." Before John could reply, a guard arrested him for disorderly conduct. The regent kicked him from his office and ordered him to prison on a diet of bread and water for a week. The slightest criticism of his reign Wolf resented with instant and crushing cruelty. His system of spies was complete and his knowledge of every man's attitude accurate and full. Where-ever he appeared, he received the most cringing obeisance. Especially did women tremble at his approach and count themselves happy if he condescended to smile. CHAPTER XXXIV A BROTHER TO THE BEAST At the end of three months from the time he took possession of the dredge, Wolf's men had built five duplicates, and they were all at work. More than three thousand dollars' worth of gold he weighed daily and stored in secret vaults whose keys never left his grasp.