But it was a sharp strain, and it would not be safe to try it again." He thrust his gloved hands into the pockets of his fur coat, so that the stick he held stood upright against his shoulder in a rather military fashion.

The fur cap sat a little to one side on his strange head, his eyes twinkled, his long white beard waved in the cold wind, and his whole appearance was that of a jaunty gnome-king, well satisfied with the inspection of his treasure chamber.
And he had cause for satisfaction, as he knew well enough when he thought of the decided progress made in the great experiment.

The cost at which that progress had been obtained was nothing.

Had Israel Kafka perished altogether under the treatment he had received, Keyork Arabian would have bestowed no more attention upon the catastrophe than would have been barely necessary in order to conceal it and to protect himself and Unorna from the consequences of the crime.

In the duel with death, the life of one man was of small consequence, and Keyork would have sacrificed thousands to his purposes with equal indifference to their intrinsic value and with a proportionately greater interest in the result to be attained.