Fo-Hi carefully poured the contents of the crucible into a flat platinum pan.
"In China, Dr. Stuart," he said, "we know how to make men work! I myself am the deviser of a variant of the unduly notorious kite device and the scarcely less celebrated 'Six Gates of Wisdom.' I term it The Feast of a Thousand Ants. It is performed with the aid of African driver ant, a pair of surgical scissors and a pot of honey. I have observed you studying with interest the human skeleton yonder. It is that of one of my followers—a Nubian mute—who met with an untimely end quite recently. You are wondering, no doubt, how I obtained the frame in so short a time? My African driver ants, Dr. Stuart, of which I have three large cases in a cellar below this room, performed the task for me in exactly sixty-nine minutes."
Stuart strained frenziedly at his gyves.
"My God!" he groaned. "All I have heard of you was the merest flattery. You are either a fiend or a madman!"
"When you are enlisted as a member of the Sublime Order," said Fo-Hi softly, "and you awaken in China, Dr. Stuart—you will work. We have no unwilling recruits."
"Stop your accursed talk. I have heard enough."
But the metallic voice continued smoothly:
"I appreciate the difficulty which you must experience in grasping the true significance of this movement. You have seen mighty nations, armed with every known resource of science, at a deadlock on the battlefield. You naturally fail to perceive how a group of Oriental philosophers can achieve what the might of Europe failed to achieve. You will remember, in favour of my claims, that we command the service of the world's genius, and have a financial backing which could settle the national loans of the world! In other words, exhumation of a large percentage of the great men who have died in recent years would be impossible. Their tombs are empty."
"I have heard enough. Drug me, kill me; but spare me your confidences."
"In the crowded foyer of a hotel," continued Fo-Hi imperturbably, "of a theatre, of a concert-room; in the privacy of their home, of their office; wherever opportunity offered, I caused them to be touched with the point of a hypodermic needle such as this." He held up a small hypodermic syringe.