“But _you_ are here, Majesty--nine hundred pounds--and the temperature is balmy and pleasant. I don’t understand.” “Well,” he said, hesitatingly, “it is a secret, but I may as well reveal it, for these prying and impertinent chemists are going to find it out sometime or other, anyway. Perhaps you have read what Madame Curie says about radium; how she goes searching among its splendid secrets and seizes upon one after another of them and italicizes its specialty; how she says ‘the compounds of radium are _spontaneously luminous_’--require no coal in the production of light, you see; how she says, ‘a glass vessel containing radium _spontaneously charges itself with electricity_’--no coal or water power required to generate it, you see; how she says ‘radium possesses the remarkable property of _liberating heat spontaneously and continuously_’--no coal required to fire-up on the world’s machinery, you see. She ransacks the pitch-blende for its radioactive substances, and captures three and labels them; one, which is embodied with bismuth, she names polonium; one, which is embodied with barium, she names radium; the name given to the third was actinium. Now listen; she says ‘_the question now was to separate the polonium from the bismuth_ ... this is the task that has occupied us for years and has been a most difficult one.’ For years, you see--for _years_. That is their way, those plagues, those scientists--peg, peg, peg--dig, dig, dig--plod, plod, plod. I wish I could catch a cargo of them for my place; it would be an economy. Yes, for years, you see. They never give up. Patience, hope, faith, perseverance; it is the way of all the breed. Columbus and the rest. In radium this lady has added a new world to the planet’s possessions, and matched--Columbus--and his peer. She has set herself the task of divorcing polonium and bismuth; when she succeeds she will have done--what, should you say?” “Pray name it, Majesty.” “It’s another new world added--a gigantic one. I will explain; for you would never divine the size of it, and she herself does not suspect it.” “Do, Majesty, I beg of you.” “Polonium, freed from bismuth and made independent, is the one and only power that can control radium, restrain its destructive forces, tame them, reduce them to obedience, and make them do useful and profitable work for your race. Examine my skin. What do you think of it?” “It is delicate, silky, transparent, thin as a gelatine film--exquisite, beautiful, Majesty!” “It is made of polonium. All the rest of me is radium. If I should strip off my skin the world would vanish away in a flash of flame and a puff of smoke, and the remnants of the extinguished moon would sift down through space a mere snow-shower of gray ashes!” I made no comment, I only trembled.