As he relapsed into what seemed urgent introspection, a ruddy mist began to emanate, first from his head, then his body. Open as was the air-scape and swift their flight, a noxious odor spread.
For a space they alternated tail-spins and nose-dives with loops in the lurid altitudes. Dolores, from her earth-habit of fear, cried out against such recklessness.
His Majesty’s dazed look suggested that her protest had recalled him from some evil spell. The emanations from his body thinned and ceased.
“Too much joy in our ride, my child? You’d forgive my abstraction if you realized how I am ulcering from the trick the teetotalers put over on me—and only because I felt too strong to fear their weakness.”
A scorching glance he threw across at her, as though she had spoken objection. “You’ve got to take what you get when you’re dead, you know. I am what most of you get. All I need to force the rookies of yonder army to my will is their own consciences. The morale is the only thing. They know what they deserve and I am their only chance of escaping it. It means something to those Relicts of Right for me to remark, ‘To hell with you!’”
The girl-shade’s eyes stung, not so much from the rush of torrid air as the effort to face his blighting gaze. Her conceptions were overtaxed, her mind fagged, her heart hurting with anxiety for the earthlings over whom she still yearned. Realizing that some response was expected of her——
“But why do you train so many millions of the lost?”
“Lost? Under my training they find themselves, just as you soon shall be finding yourself and your powers for evil.” He eyed her yet more tryingly. “Why do you suppose, now?”
“Is it—” Dolores shuddered—“to send their spirits in force to the living world, to conquer all that are left? At the Mystery Gate I was told that none might return who had crossed into Shadow Land.”
“You were told aright. The conflict for which my troops are training will be in the Inter-World—an irresistible onslaught of fiendishness. Do you suppose that I’ve been straining my inventiveness all these centuries to arouse the beast in every man simply for amusement? I have not yet begun to show my power. But it won’t be long now to wait.”