"Forgive me--forgive me," he said at last, clearly enough for all to hear. "If any of you still know what mercy is, or the meaning of forgiveness, say a kind word to me. Loving you, relying on humanity and myself, despising the march of Time and the power of Heaven, I became a false redeemer, and took upon my back the burden of all sin. But how was I to know, my people, I who am only a man, whither my plans for your redemption would lead? Have none of you a word to say? "Is there no one here who remembers our fighting days? Where are the great lieutenants who stood at my side and cheered me with counsel? Where are Robertson, Baldwin, and Andrew Spencer? Are there none of the old set left?" He brushed the tears and blood from his eyes and gazed into the crowd. Pointing joyously to an old man who sat not far away he called out, "I know you, Andrew, from that great scar on your forehead. Come here, Andrew, and that quickly." The old man seemed neither to hear nor understand him, but sat like all the rest, blinking and unresponsive. "Andrew," he cried, "you must know me! Think of Brum and South Melton Street. Be an Englishman, Andrew--come and shake hands!" The man looked at him with staring, timid eyes; then shuddered all over, scrambled up from the ground, and ran away. "It does not matter," murmured the King of the World. "There are no men left. I have lived in the desert, and I saw there that which I would I had seen long ago--visions that came too late to warn me. For a time my Plan has conquered; but that greater Plan shall be victorious in the end." I was trying to stanch the wounds I had inflicted, and I hoped to comfort him, but he thrust me aside. "I know that no man of this generation could have killed me. I have nothing in common with you, bright Spirit. It was not you I loved, not for you I fought and struggled, but for these. I do not want to be reminded, by that light of reason shining in your eyes, of what we were all of us, once. It was a heroic age, when good and evil lived together, and misery bound man to man. Yet I will not regret what I have done. I ask forgiveness not of God, but of Man; and I claim the gratitude of thousands who are unknown, and unknown shall ever remain. For ages and ages God must reign over an empty kingdom, since I have brought to an end one great cycle of centuries. Tell me, Stranger, was I not great in my day?" He fell back, and the Wind that took his Spirit carried me also into space. VII THE LAST MEN