“You want me to turn back, Arnold,” he said. “Once there was a time when I hesitated. But ... can even that God of yours turn back? Come with me, Arnold, and for the sake of the old friendship to which you have appealed I will give you power. Defective as you are, you shall live your life to the full capacity of your talent. You shall not suffer because you came so unkindly into this world of ours. If your mind turns toward pleasures such as that foul defective Lembken enjoys, they shall be yours. If not, then you shall work with me as you used to do. When I and Esther rule the world together, immortal as the fabled gods, you shall sit at our feet and be our confidant.” That I hoped still to win Esther had never entered the man’s mind. The sublimity of his egotism was the measure of his blindness. Just as he had entered the cellar, so self-absorbed that he had failed to see the benches and the crucifix, nor dreamed that here, where his evil dreams began, their end was planned, so, now, he did not see. The devilish will that had carried him thus far would bring him to destruction. At my hands, if I played the part shrewdly. But I lost all self-command. “Though you have all the world at your feet, Sanson,” I cried, “you can never hold me to obedience, nor Esther either. I love her, and we shall both die before we yield!” For an instant I saw his face before me, twisted with all the passions of his thwarted will; then I saw the blinding white light leap from his Ray rod as he fired at me. CHAPTER XX THE SWEEP OF THE NET “I am not at all afraid,” I retorted, nettled at Lazaroff’s sneer, “but how do I get in?” A dog was yelping somewhere outside the Institute, and all the dogs in Croydon seemed to have taken up its challenge. It was difficult for me to make my voice audible above the uproar. “I am not at all afraid,” I repeated, “but—” I was back in the cellar with Esther and Lazaroff, and we were examining the cylinders. As I looked about me, I seemed to be in the cylinder still, but gradually it expanded, until it became a vast hall, dark, save for a little window near the ceiling, through whose half-opaque crystal a little light filtered in dimly. Lazaroff seemed to have aged. He wore a white beard, and his touch was very gentle as he bathed my face with water. As I stared at him he became ... somebody whom I had once known ... Bishop Alfred! “Now you are better,” said the old man, with his child-like smile. I put my hand up to my aching head. There was a scarred groove along the top of the scalp, where the glow ray had plowed its passage. I began to remember now. The howling of the dogs broke out afresh. The din was terrific, and the mournful tones of the poor animals’ cries made the place a pandemonium. “Arnold!” whispered a soft voice at my side.