Page:The council of seven.djvu/141

 "Unless?"

She hung upon an answer which seemed an age in coming—an answer which in reality she had to force him to make.

"I kill him." Involuntarily his hand strayed to the bandage that had been fixed above his right eye. "It is not revenge. It is far more than that the job one was sent here to do  to remove a deadly menace from this unlucky world."

Helen fixed her eyes on the drawn face of the man she loved and believed in as she said slowly, "You'll surely do that if you don't lose heart. One of your powers can do anything."

"Less than a week ago that was my own opinion. Since then something terrible has happened." He forced a laugh which sounded harsh and unreal. "A knock on the head has changed all that. One realizes now what one is up against. What chance has a penny trumpet? Can it persuade the walls of Jericho to fall down? Can it drown the thunders of the U. P.?"

"Surely yes, if you have faith."

"Don't let us deceive ourselves. There are facts to face. This monster has been well called the Colossus. And his power is great. In this country, at least, he is the absolute dictator of public opinion. Controlling the wires in the way he does—nearly every newspaper in the United Kingdom has now been forced by the mere cost of its production to enter his Trust—he sways these islands from end to end. At Hellington