"'Splendid!' I breathed.
"'Yes,' he said looking hard at me. 'The best of it is Albertus asks for nothing. You can neither bribe nor buy him; your flattery will not move him; your approbation or blame alike are vain ... he has the self-sufficiency of the Master of Masters.'
"'Yes,' I found myself saying eagerly. 'He is the Master of Masters.'
"Suddenly he turned and threw the curtain back and took me by the arm and led me away. 'My force is all going into Albertus—but I must not overdo it. If I stand too long before him he drains me of all my god-energy, you know ... that leaves me sick and exhausted. You've heard about how Michael Angelo put all his power into his marble statue of Moses? You've read about such things? You know the kind of gush. I met a poor, half-crazed, devil-driven poet-fellow in Paris some years ago who told me he had written a great poem; he had lured the crucified soul of a murderer into his verses. Confoundedly conceited about it, too, he was ... called it The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Bah! It would have taken him a lifetime to put a murderer's socks into a poem. He was a mountebank ... a posturer! And what is this winged thing men name the soul? And who did make the stars?' Ombos turned demon-like eyes on me, and his whole face seemed lit up with an appalling mirth.
"'Believe them not, for they are not miraculous ones. They will be lost for ever; they will die. Their books and statues may live, but they will die, as sure as the grass grows over graves. My force and body and soul is passing into the Master of Masters.... I shall live and be a god, I shall stand oblivious and indifferent to the centuries as they stalk by.'
"'You don't mean to tell me ...'
"Ombos looked up, his red-green eyes gleaming as he answered,
"'Most certainly I do ... my soul will pass into that bronze statue when I am ready to give it up.'
"'The war, Mr. Ombos,' I thought as I looked at his shrivelled fearsome figure, 'has turned your head. There are certainly a few bats in your belfry. You will find your way into an asylum before many weeks have passed.'
"You must understand, I didn't realize what kind of a chap I was dealing with then, I didn't know that he was all cold and calm and apart from life ... very clever and—philosophical, but not human.