But, as always before, he knew now that he was safe enough. His armed citadel here was wholly safe from outside attack, even if the stricken multitudes should find brief strength to try and assail him. His retainers, thinking they were safe, would remain at their posts. Poor fools. At the last, even they would be stricken and Groff would retreat up here. Impregnable, here in the tower and its neighbor little rooms, he could maintain his unpolluted air, and eat the food and drink the water which he had stored here in such abundance. Perhaps even, nature would let him live the longer for his isolation. Master of the earth. The man who owned everything. Pride swelled him again as he thought of that poor little fool who had only wanted to make himself the titular leader of the earth, and in his own fatuous conceit had written it all down in his little book. "You have good reason to fear me," Groff said. "You realize it now?" The young couple were white-faced and trembling as they clung to each other. And suddenly the girl murmured, "I--I pity you." Groff caught at it, with his sudden wild rage flooding him. "You lie!" he rasped. "You are frightened. You are terrified of me and my revenge." "Revenge?" young Jac muttered. "I wonder what we have done to you--except that we live and breathe and try to be happy." His arm held the trembling girl closer; and he turned and gazed into her face, her moist red lips quivering, her eyes like misted stars as she regarded him. "If we are both to die," he murmured, "still we will have each other, Manya." "Yes," she whispered. Then it seemed that the youth was not quite so afraid as he straightened and fronted Groff. "Your revenge, when you kill us both, is not quite complete," he said with a twisted smile. They turned at Groff's gesture of dismissal. At the head of the great staircase which went down from the tower, dominant with his power, Groff stood with his heavy ornamented robe tossed over one shoulder and all his emblazoned insignia dangling on his chest. The young couple were still clinging to each other as they descended. Then they were a little blob, dwarfed by distance, dwindling into total insignificance. It was only a trick of lighting of the great staircase, of course; but suddenly, just before they vanished, it seemed that the light had magnified them into something gigantic.... * * * * *