In the meantime glimmerings were being caught, not of the identity of Goliah, but of how he had worked and prepared for his assuming control of the world.  Little things leaked out, clues were followed up, apparently unrelated things were pieced together.  Strange stories of blacks stolen from Africa were remembered, of Chinese and Japanese contract coolies who had mysteriously disappeared, of lonely South Sea Islands raided and their inhabitants carried away; stories of yachts and merchant steamers, mysteriously purchased, that had disappeared and the descriptions of which remotely tallied with the crafts that had carried the Orientals and Africans and islanders away.  Where had Goliah got the sinews of war? was the question.  And the surmised answer was:  By exploiting these stolen labourers.  It was they that lived in the exposed village on Palgrave Island.  It was the product of their toil that had purchased the yachts and merchant steamers and enabled Goliah’s agents to permeate society and carry out his will.  And what was the product of their toil that had given Goliah the wealth necessary to realize his plans?  Commercial radium, the newspapers proclaimed; and radiyte, and radiosole, and argatium, and argyte, and the mysterious golyte (that had proved so valuable in metallurgy).  These were the new compounds, discovered in the first decade of the twentieth century, the commercial and scientific use of which had become so enormous in the second decade.

The line of fruit boats that ran from Hawaii to San Francisco was declared to be the property of Goliah.  This was a surmise, for no other owner could be discovered, and the agents who handled the shipments of the fruit boats were only agents.  Since no one else owned the fruit boats, then Goliah must own them.  The point of which is:  That it leaked out that the Major portion of the world’s supply in these Precious compounds was brought to San Francisco by those very fruit boats.  That the whole chain of surmise was correct was proved in later years when Goliah’s slaves were liberated and honourably pensioned by the international government of the world.  It was at that time that the seal of secrecy was lifted from the lips of his agents and higher emissaries, and those that chose revealed much of the mystery of Goliah’s organization and methods.  His destroying angels, however, remained for ever dumb.  Who the men were who went forth to the high places and killed at his bidding will be unknown to the end of time—­for kill they did, by means of that very subtle and then-mysterious force that Goliah had discovered and named “Energon.”