Georgina heard him chuckling and taunting the man
in his own tongue, and saw the yellow face of the victim twist and
quiver with fright. Suddenly realizing against her own will what was
taking place, a great horror mastered her and she fainted for the
second time within twenty-four hours. When consciousness returned, the golden light of late afternoon was
flooding the room. Georgina, picking up her fallen work-basket and
scattered materials, was lost in a daze of doubt; but finally felt
convinced that the scene which had overcome her must have been all too
tragically real. Her worst fears, then, were horrible truths. What
to do about it, nothing in her experience could tell her; and she
was vaguely thankful that her brother did not appear. She must talk
to him, but not now. She could not talk to anybody now. And thinking
shudderingly of the monstrous happening behind those barred clinic
windows, she crept into bed for a long night of anguished sleeplessness. *       *       *       *       *

Rising haggardly on the following day, Georgina saw the doctor for the
first time since his recovery. He was bustling about preoccupiedly,
circulating between the house and the clinic, and paying little
attention to anything besides his work. There was no chance for the
dreaded interview, and Clarendon did not even notice his sister's
worn-out aspect and hesitant manner. In the evening she heard him in the library, talking to himself in a
fashion most unusual for him, and she felt that he was under a great
strain which might culminate in the return of his apathy. Entering
the room, she tried to calm him without referring to any trying
subject, and forced a steadying cup of bouillon upon him. Finally she
asked gently what was distressing him, and waited anxiously for his
reply, hoping to hear that Surama's treatment of the poor Tibetan had
horrified and outraged him. There was a note of fretfulness in his voice as he responded. "What's distressing me? Good God, Georgina, what _isn't_? Look at the
cages and see if you have to ask again! Cleaned out--milked dry--not
a cursed specimen left; and a line of the most important bacterial
cultures incubating in their tubes without a chance to do an ounce of
good! Days' work wasted--whole program set back--it's enough to drive a
man mad! How shall I ever get anywhere if I can't scrape up some decent
subjects?" Georgina stroked his forehead. "I think you ought to rest a while, Al dear." He moved away. "Rest? That's good! That's damn good! What else have I been doing but
resting and vegetating and staring blankly into space for the last
fifty or a hundred or a thousand years? Just as I manage to shake off
the clouds, I have to run short of material--and then I'm told to lapse
back again into drooling stupefaction! God! And all the while some
sneaking thief is probably working with my data and getting ready to
come out ahead of me with the credit for my own work. I'll lose by a
neck--some fool with the proper specimens will get the prize, when one
week more with even half-adequate facilities would see me through with
flying colors!" His voice rose querulously, and there was an overtone of mental strain
which Georgina did not like. She answered softly, yet not so softly as
to hint at the soothing of a psychopathic case. "But you're killing yourself with this worry and tension, and if you're
dead, how can you do your work?" He gave a smile that was almost a sneer. "I guess a week or a month--all the time I need--wouldn't quite
finish me, and it doesn't much matter what becomes of me or any other
individual in the end. Science is what must be served--science--the
austere cause of human knowledge. I'm like the monkeys and birds
and guinea-pigs I use--just a cog in the machine, to be used to the
advantage of the whole. They had to be killed--I may have to be
killed--what of it? Isn't the cause we serve worth that and more?" Georgina sighed. For a moment she wondered whether, after all, this
ceaseless round of slaughter really was worth while. "But are you absolutely sure your discovery will be enough of a boon to
humanity to warrant these sacrifices?" Clarendon's eyes flashed dangerously. "Humanity! What the deuce is humanity? Science! Dolts! Just
individuals over and over again! Humanity is made for preachers
to whom it means the blindly credulous. Humanity is made for the
predatory rich to whom it speaks in terms of dollars and cents. Humanity is made for the politician to whom it signifies collective
power to be used to his advantage. What is humanity? Nothing! Thank
God that crude illusion doesn't last! What a grown man worships is
truth--knowledge--science--light--the rending of the veil and the
pushing back of the shadow. Knowledge, the juggernaut! There is death
in our own ritual. We must kill--dissect--destroy--and all for the sake
of discovery--the worship of the ineffable light. The goddess Science
demands it. We test a doubtful poison by killing. How else? No thought
for self--just knowledge--the effect must be known." His voice trailed off in a kind of temporary exhaustion, and Georgina
shuddered slightly. "But this is horrible, Al! You shouldn't think of it that way!" Clarendon cackled sardonically, in a manner which stirred odd and
repugnant associations in his sister's mind. "Horrible? You think what _I_ say is horrible? You ought to hear
Surama! I tell you, things were known to the priests of Atlantis
that would make you drop dead of fright if you heard a hint of them. Knowledge was knowledge a hundred thousand years ago, when our especial
forebears were shambling about Asia as speechless semi-apes! They know
something of it in the Hoggar region--there are rumors in the farther
uplands of Tibet--and once I heard an old man in China calling on
Yog-Sothoth----"

He turned pale, and made a curious sign in the air with his extended
forefinger. Georgina felt genuinely alarmed, but became somewhat calmer
as his speech took a less fantastic form. "Yes, it may be horrible, but it's glorious, too. The pursuit of
knowledge, I mean. Certainly, there's no slovenly sentiment connected
with it. Doesn't nature kill--constantly and remorselessly--and are
any but fools horrified at the struggle? Killings are necessary. They are the glory of science. We learn something from them, and we
can't sacrifice learning to sentiment. Hear the sentimentalists howl
against vaccination! They fear it will kill the child. Well, what if
it does? How else can we discover the laws of disease concerned? As a
scientist's sister you ought to know better than to prate sentiment. You ought to help my work instead of hindering it!" "But Al," protested Georgina, "I haven't the slightest intention of
hindering your work. Haven't I always tried to help as much as I could? I am ignorant, I suppose, and can't help very actively; but at least
I'm proud of you--proud for my own sake and for the family's sake--and
I've always tried to smooth the way.