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 you weed out from their leaders the people I shall indicate to you.”

He spoke smoothly like an experienced orator, that is to say thinking all the time about something else, and with such self-evident truth that he made doubt or resistance impossible. It seemed to Prokop that he had heard him on some occasion or other before.

“Your situation is unique,” Daimon continued, still walking up and down the room. “You have already rejected the proposal of a certain Government, and you behaved like a sensible man. What can I offer you compared to what you can obtain by yourself? You’d be mad to hand over your secret to anybody. You have in your possession a means by which we can overcome all the powers of the earth. I have unlimited confidence in you. Do you want fifty or a hundred million pounds? You can have them within a week. It is enough for me that at present you are the sole owner of Krakatit. Our people have fourteen and a half ounces in their possession, brought by a Saxon comrade from Balttin, but these fools haven’t the slightest understanding of what your chemistry means. They keep it like a sacred relic in a porcelain box and three times a week nearly come to blows over the question of what government building they are going to blow up into the air. Anyway, you'll hear them. There’s no danger to you from that quarter. There’s not a scrap of Krakatit in Balttin. Mr. Thomas is evidently near to abandoning his experiments”

“Where is George—George Thomas?” asked Prokop.