A scorching glance he threw across at her, as though she had spoken objection. “You’ve got to take what you get when you’re dead, you know. _I_ am what most of you get. All I need to force the rookies of yonder army to my will is their own consciences. The morale is the only thing. They know what they deserve and I am their only chance of escaping it. It means something to those Relicts of Right for me to remark, ‘To hell with you!’” The girl-shade’s eyes stung, not so much from the rush of torrid air as the effort to face his blighting gaze. Her conceptions were overtaxed, her mind fagged, her heart hurting with anxiety for the earthlings over whom she still yearned. Realizing that some response was expected of her---- “But why do you train so many millions of the lost?” “Lost? Under my training they find themselves, just as you soon shall be finding yourself and your powers for evil.” He eyed her yet more tryingly. “Why do you suppose, now?” “Is it--” Dolores shuddered--“to send their spirits in force to the living world, to conquer all that are left? At the Mystery Gate I was told that none might return who had crossed into Shadow Land.” “You were told aright. The conflict for which my troops are training will be in the Inter-World--an irresistible onslaught of fiendishness. Do you suppose that I’ve been straining my inventiveness all these centuries to arouse the beast in every man simply for amusement? I have not yet begun to show my power. But it won’t be long now to wait.” “And then?” Shaken by dread greater than her comprehension, she shrank away from him. “Do you speak of your Great Intention?” His look leaped after her, a devouring fire. “I speak of a night far spent--of a day that is at hand. I speak of earth and water and air that shall cleave together as component parts of chaos, of heavens that shall stretch out ‘like a curtain,’ of hordes that shall put on the ‘armor of light.’ No time to call on the gods of men in my surprise. No pause for a thought of reprieve. If love generates electricity, what of hate? Hate shall be the ammunition of the great drive. A fanfare of poisoned thoughts shall open the fire. Once the lapsing fear for mortality is burned to dross, my demands shall be granted. You dare to probe the mystery of my Intention? Keep those asking eyes of yours on me, Dolores Trent. _I_ am the mystery of Mystery Land!” Loud he hurled this declaration into the heated air. As though spoken into some megaphone of surpassing conductive power, it reverberated away and away, down and down. At its message, lightning licked the air, to be gulped in turn by thunder. From below echoed tumult so great that the atmospheric response rumbled as from volcanic eruptions. Shrieks arose from the Hadean hordes.