He had to keep moving and victoriously moving if his magnetism were not to vanish. When his empire included all the islands in the archipelago but the Isle of Devils in the centre, there was nothing for it but to attempt its conquest. We heard him bluster out his favourite bombastic phrases, learned from his penny romances and biographies. “Heaven is our ally, and who on earth can stand against us? Is it not our mission, the mission of a god, to chase all devils from the earth? Our last conquest shall be hell, and its denizens shall die by fire and sword.” Utterances and proclamations like this fired the imaginations of his soldiers, and they would have laid their lives down at the moment for this fire-eater. What he had boasted or threatened before, he had done, or had by astute fiction persuaded his followers that he had done; and what limit was there to his deeds? If he said that he would scale the heavens, they were certain he would do it. The thought fused them into a unity and chased out of their breasts the panic which the mere mention of the central isle produced. He had not the traditional and hereditary ague-fit to overcome in his blood, yet there was a new sinking of the heart when he thought of his task. He had to reassure himself by wild rhodomontade, as he superintended the building and armament of an enormous fleet and the concentration of the largest army the archipelago had ever seen. He could not pick a diplomatic quarrel with his new victim; yet he must have at least the semblance of a cause in order to put heart into his followers. He announced that he had sent envoys to the Isle of Devils to open intercourse with it, but they were not allowed to approach. Again and again had he tried this pacific measure, but no heed had been given to him. Let vengeance be upon the heads of so churlish and unjust a people! How could such poltroons and men-haters be allowed to cumber the earth? I watched the great fleet put out from Broolyi with its streamers of smoke. We could have heard the acclamations almost with the unaided ear; they rent the sky when Choktroo went on board his own fire-ship, which was thrice the size of the largest of the others, and thrice more brilliantly caparisoned. He passed with his favourite silent and self-absorbed look on his face through the applauding crowds on to a raised platform in the stern, reserved for him and his staff. Arrived there he paced silently with his chin resting on his folded arms. He knew what an impression of godlikeness this made on the crowd. Small though he was in stature, he doubtless seemed to his followers and the people on the shore to take gigantic proportions.