By God, NO, it was not his fault; he had made no mistake.

His energy, industry, and foresight had been sound.

He had been merely the object of a colossal trick, a sordid injustice, a victim of the insatiate greed of the monster, caught and choked by one of those millions of tentacles suddenly reaching up from below, from out the dark beneath his feet, coiling around his throat, throttling him, strangling him, sucking his blood.

For a moment he thought of the courts, but instantly laughed at the idea.

What court was immune from the power of the monster?
Ah, the rage of helplessness, the fury of impotence! No help, no hope,--ruined in a brief instant--he a veritable giant, built of great sinews, powerful, in the full tide of his manhood, having all his health, all his wits.