From the woman who had first moved him to the very depths of his being he had wrested all the power of will with which her personality resisted him. It was his pride to know that. He had taken her being, her beauty, her independence, her exclusiveness, and grappled them to himself, and this work of his was the very highest spiritual expression of his powers and capabilities. But between him and her there was a period of ten minutes in which she had escaped his domination, in which he had to renounce his claim to this symbol of his superhuman force. And that period of time, that barren, useless part of his life, he owed to the power of this one man. His flight from Germany with this woman and his journey across the Atlantic had been so minutely prepared in all its details that only death could intervene. His empire of Citopomar, with its virgin forests, tigers, rattlesnakes, where death lay in wait at every moment, its mountains and its waterfalls and its rare exotic growths, was waiting for him, waiting to set him free from Europe, to offer him a new life. Any day might see him crowned as emperor. But he would eat of Dead Sea fruit for the rest of his life, did he take possession of his realm before he had seized upon this man with all the full force of his lust for power and his deadly hatred, had held him within his grasp and annihilated him. Between him and Wenk it was a struggle for existence, and he could know no peace while the other lived. Once, when the thoughts surging within him would no longer be controlled, he replied to the Countess’s inquiry as to when they would leave Germany, “I shall catch him alive. I shall catch him like a bird in the snare. He will flutter helpless into my hands. Not till then do I go.” She turned away afraid, guessing the man he meant. Since that moment of her resistance and hope of escape she seemed to have become more subdued than ever, falling deeper under his demon spell. She did not venture to oppose or question more. Mabuse’s enterprise with regard to Wenk developed slowly. But steadily and surely the net around him was tightening.... * * * * * Wenk was in Munich again. George had been imprisoned there, and he played the rôle of a deaf mute. No one had heard a word from him since his arrest. He was confronted with the constables and tradespeople from Schachen who had seen him for many weeks, with the young fellows whom he had tried to hand over to the Foreign Legion, all of whom instantly recognized him, but he did not utter a word. One morning they found he had hanged himself with his braces. He had written one word on the wall of his cell, the word that one of Napoleon’s generals had made renowned after he had lost the battle of Waterloo.