The eight-hour day became a seven-hour day, and in a
few months the national working day was reduced to five hours.
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.
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