Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930

"We'll talk first," said Bell harshly. "I want to hear what you have to say." The Master nodded, his fingers touching the rose petals as if in a sensitive pleasure in their texture. "Always courageous," he said benignly. "I admire it while I combat it. But the Senor Jamison...." Jamison had been looking fascinatedly at his own hands, opening and closing the fingers with a savage abruptness. They obeyed him, though they trembled. "I didn't drink the damned stuff that hotel keeper brought us last night," he growled. "Bell did. And I--" "Wait a minute, Jamison," said Bell evenly. "Let's talk to The Master for a while. I swore, sir," he said grimly, "that I'd kill you. I've seen what your devilish poison does, in the hands of the men you've chosen to distribute it. I've seen"--he swallowed and said harshly--"I've seen enough to make me desire nothing so much as to see you roast in hell! But you wanted to talk to me. Go ahead!" The Master beamed at him, and then glanced about at the frock-coated men who had been attending him. Bell glanced at them. Ribiera was there, chuckling. "I told you, tio mio," he said familiarly, "that he would not be polite. You can do nothing with him. Better have him shot." Francia, of Paraguay, nodded amusedly to Bell as their eyes met. But The Master shook his really rather beautiful head. An old man can be good to look at, and with a saintly aureole of snow-white hair and the patriarchal white beard, The Master was the picture of benign and beautiful old age.