The Prince and the Professor sat up in the smoking-room for a considerable time after Nitocris had retired. Oscarovitch was doing his utmost to persuade his guest to revoke his decision as to the creation of the aerial warships. Franklin Marmion's simple announcement, which he never thought for a moment of disbelieving, had filled his mind with new ideas, which were rapidly taking the shape of gorgeous dreams of an empire such as mortal man had never ruled over before. All his present designs faded away into mere trivialities in comparison with this splendid conception. He pictured Nitocris, as his consort, Empress of the air, and himself Lord of earth and sea and sky. But all his subtle arguments, all his delicately-put suggestions, and his skilfully framed promises failed to produce the slightest effect upon the genially inflexible man, who quietly turned them all aside, as a grown man might deal with the arguments of a boy. The thought that this man who was lying back in his deep-seated armchair, holding a cigar in a white, delicately-shaped hand which was strong enough to shake the world to its foundations, should possess such a tremendous power and yet refuse to use it, as quietly as he might have declined an invitation to dinner, exasperated him almost beyond the bounds of patience. If he would only join forces with him what glories might they not achieve, what splendours of power and possession might not be theirs! Here was universal empire, in one sense, only a couple of yards away from him! In another it was more distant than the suns which flame in Space beyond the Milky Way. It was maddening, but it was true, and he knew the man well enough now to feel absolutely assured that no extremity of mental or physical torment would wring the priceless secret from him. Well, if it had to be, it must be. If he could not learn the secret, at least no one else should. Before morning it would be buried for ever under the waters of the Baltic, and he would revenge himself on the daughter for that which the father refused to do. If Franklin Marmion would not give him the sceptre of the World-Empire, then Nitocris should be his wife and Empress if she would, and if not, his slave and plaything, as he had sworn to Phadrig the Egyptian. The fortress-castle of Oscarburg, on the lonely wooded shore of Viborg Bay, had kept many a secret safely before now, and it would keep this one. Every retainer in the Castle, every man, woman, and child on the estates for leagues around, was his, body and soul, as their fathers before them had been the blind, unquestioning serfs of his fathers. There his word was law, and his will was fate. There was no "liberty" within his domains, since no man wanted it, or would have understood it had it been given to him. When their argument was over they parted, apparently the best of friends. Franklin Marmion went to bed calmly curious as to what was going to happen, and Oscarovitch paid a visit to his captain.