“Let me tell you what the reports of our spies, coupled with my own observations, have taught us. First and foremost it is this. The spirit of Russia has gone. It is a race now of the sawdust type of man. When the new rulers of Russia, the predecessors of Retsky, stood up to their knees in blood and indulged in an orgy of slaughter, when they burned the churches in the towns and villages, destroyed the ikons which meant so much to the peasants, stamped out of them and out of the children at the schools and the young men growing up all sense of reverence, all sense of religion, they did an evil work for their country. They are proud of it, these men, that religion is no longer part of the life of the Russian peasant. Yet by killing it, I tell you that whatever his belief may have been, they have killed his soul. The Russians will never fight again as they fought for the Czar, for their country and for that something which meant dim things to them as they knelt before the cross…They have become broken reeds, Monsieur Châtelain.”
The French Minister moved uneasily in his place. There was a heavy frown upon his forehead.
“You are a young man,” he pronounced, “with much confidence and a great flow of words.”
Cheng glanced towards him and for a moment there was a fleeting expression of immeasurable contempt in his face. It passed like a flicker. He was himself again—courteous and reasonable.
“If you decide upon trusting to Russia to bring you peace of mind, sir,” he said, “when the time comes you will find out that my words are true.”
“We have sent military envoys to Russia.” General Levissier declared. “Those men have reported to us as regards the state of the Russian armies and the character of their soldiers. We were content to negotiate for their alliance. Now there has come this avalanche for which your country, Prince, seems to be responsible. Can you wonder that we feel a just, a righteous indignation with you?”
Cheng shook his head in puzzled fashion.
“Alas,” he confessed, “I do not see any cause for that indignation. In marching against the common foe of China and the whole civilised world—the Russians—we had no enmity in our hearts towards the French.”
“Yet you attack our ally!” Châtelain expostulated.
“There has been no declaration of war as yet nor is it likely that there will be. As to your alliance with Russia, we have not considered it a formal or an established thing,” Cheng said gravely. “We have looked upon it largely as newspaper talk. Russia of the old days was a magnificent ally indeed. But for the foul poison of Communism working under the old name of Nihilism, which crept like an evil poison amongst the troops, Russia would have saved the world from the disaster of that great war. To-day Russia could save no one from anything. They lose their one strong man and see the state of confusion in which they are! The machinery of the State, such as it was, has stopped. The War Department is in a condition of hopeless disorder. The forces which are being moved tardily now towards the eastern frontier are moving with scanty commissariat and few heavy guns. They are marching to certain death. The great armies of Russia are a myth. There may be a million men on paper but they will never be drawn together.”
Levissier’s face was dark with anger. He was evidently fighting hard to control himself.
“I will call your attention, Prince Cheng,” he said, “to one statement which you have just made. You remarked that Russia has lost her one strong man. How have they lost him? By whose hand was he removed?”
“By mine,” Cheng admitted. “I claim the sole credit for that beneficent action. My friend Humberstone is opposed to the taking of life, so he was not concerned. It is I alone who am responsible.”
CHAPTER XXXIII
Table of Contents
CHENG’S admission, calmly spoken though it was, exercised for a few moments a paralysing influence in the little room. Monsieur Châtelain was the first to recover.
Fie rose impulsively to his feet. The veins of his forehead were standing out in ominous fashion. He was shaking with anger.
“I imagine,” he said, “that this discussion need go no farther. I should recommend you, Prince Cheng, to seek the shelter of your embassy as quickly as possible. You will discover that the taking of life in this country is not so lightly regarded as you seem to assume.”
“Monsieur le Ministre,” Cheng argued gently, “I beg that you will not be rash. There lived no man on the face of the earth who deserved death as this man deserved it. For years he has ruled with neither wisdom nor justice but as a wholesale murderer. He met with his just fate. He was shot in my presence and his body disposed of in fifty fathoms of water. I came here, however, with my friend Mark Humberstone not to discuss the death of one worthless man, but to offer you as representative of France, security and peace for your country during the rest of your days.”
Châtelain hesitated on his way to the door. He had the air of a man still suffering from shock and yet compelled to listen.
“You seek for peace in a strange manner,” he said sternly.
“It is not the first time in history,” Cheng went on calmly, “that a tyrant who stood in the way of progress has been removed. You had a treaty of alliance, sir, with this misgoverned country Russia, and in due time you would have discovered, as our spies have already discovered, that her armies, her super-equipment, her aeroplanes that were to have darkened the skies, were something of a myth. They would have fought, as they have done up till now in such small skirmishes as have taken place, as a soulless Robot-made army must always fight—without enthusiasm, without courage, without perseverance. These armies in a month’s time will have disappeared from existence, discipline will have come to an end and the peasants will trudge off to their homes. A few hundreds may be shot by their officers but that will never stop the rout, the wholesale desertions. The Russian fighting man of to-day has nothing to fight for—no domestic life, nothing beyond the skies to dream of, no inspiration. They will be easy victims. We have to-day in China a perfectly disciplined and equipped army of a million men. With a very small portion of these we shall march to Moscow.”
“A small portion?” General Levissier exclaimed.
“It will be sufficient,” Cheng told them. “It will be our purpose to give that country a new and wholesome constitution, to make her once more a sane and healthy nation who has only suffered from a too violent reaction from ages of despotism.”
“And how,” Monsieur Châtelain demanded, “do you propose to accomplish this miracle?”
Cheng pointed to where Mark was seated.
“There is the man who will answer that question,” he concluded. “I have reached the end of what I have to say for the moment.”
The French Minister resumed his seat.
“We will hear what Mr. Humberstone has to say,” he agreed. “If your scheme, however, is to bring peace to the world with a Chinese army of one million or five millions, I am of the opinion that we waste our time.”
Mark rose to his feet. He was a very impressive figure, standing at the end of the table, holding his spectacles in his hand, with a confident smile upon his lips.
“Monsieur Châtelain is quite right,” he said. “No army of any size could bring peace to the world. There is something else that can, though, and that is to take away from armies the power of fighting. My father conceived the idea many years ago, as a result of which the Japanese Fleet lies at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. He left me the legacy of finishing his work. I say so I hope reverently, I hope without any boastfulness. I did not have the first struggle with the greatest element in the world—my father harnessed that—but I have succeeded in carrying on and developing it even further and more fully than I thought possible when I started.”
The General leaned a little forward in his chair. Monsieur Châtelain was not at first greatly impressed. Mark’s simple method of speech scarcely paved the way for what he had to say.
“Of course,” Mark went on, “every scientist has realised how little we understand the greatest uncontrolled element in the world we live in. I
t will shorten matters and make it simpler if I tell you what we can do. You must remember this. In land warfare, just the same as at sea, practically every movement of troops, every weapon that is fired, every vehicle and gun carriage that goes into battle of any sort, from armoured tanks to aeroplanes, is controlled by electricity. Once or twice discoveries have been made on the lines I have been working at for ten years but they have always fallen short of the vital thing. A fortnight ago, with the help of television such as no one except those who have visited the Bureau at Nice have ever seen, Prince Cheng and I have watched Chinese armies marching, we have spoken to them in Pekin, General Fan Sik Tsun has given orders to his staff and we destroyed a Russian aeroplane flying along the track of the Trans-Siberian railway. You will realise now what I am going to tell you. The means which I am using—the instruments which I have discovered controlling wireless electricity—are independent of distance. They have an accumulative force through repercussions. At twelve thousand miles we can do exactly what you can do in Cherbourg Harbour from one battleship to another.”
“C’est incroyable!” the General muttered.
“Mais c’est la verité,” Mark rejoined quickly. “I am not idiot enough,” he continued, “to come here and expect you to believe my word, but two months ago, under a bond of secrecy, we received a visit from Monsieur Monteux, President of the Academy of Science, also Professor Ames of the National Observatory in Washington. These are two of the greatest scientists in the world. I hand you herewith their signed testimony as to what they saw on two consecutive nights from the observatory of the Bureau. You will like, perhaps, to read them later on. You will find that they confirm in every particular what I have told you.”
“But how have you kept these amazing discoveries to yourself?” Monsieur Châtelain demanded.
“Because I have no wish to make any other use of them,” Mark explained earnestly, “than to carry out my father’s legacy, of which as you know I am one of the trustees. The secret of my discoveries is deposited in Washington in the same manner as my father’s first papers. I shall only tell you that in a few weeks’ time, a hundred miles behind the small expeditionary force which is all that it will be necessary to send to Moscow, there will be a few of a new type of armoured car which will open up and each one of which will contain one of the instruments which I have now perfected. With the means of these and television, we could render useless any machinery relying in any way upon electricity within any distance. We can draw the nerves out of an army of a million men as easily as you could pump lead into a battleship crossing your bows. It is hard to realise, perhaps, all in a moment,” Mark went on, after a moment’s hesitation, “but what nation in their senses would build fighting planes, battleships, forts or any weapons intended for offence or defence with a sure knowledge that these can be destroyed by means of my machines, from practically the other side of the world? The building of armaments must automatically stop, and with that must come the greatest boon which has ever yet been given to the world—the end of warfare. I will pass you these documents, General,” Mark concluded, handing them over. “I will take the originals away, but you can have them copied and you can ring up and make an appointment with either of those men and they will tell you again what they saw. Professor Ames offered me five million dollars before he left the Observatory, for a few simple facts concerning the television. Nothing doing, of course. Not all the money in the world will buy one of those patents.”
“But surely,” Mr. Mountain broke in, “in time—some time or other—somebody will go to work and discover your secrets.”
“Not in our day, I think,” Mark replied. “It may come, of course, but for a year after my father got hold of the one strange principle which is at the basis of the whole thing he could do nothing but sit and marvel, he did not even apply it after he knew it. Always afterwards he used to say that it was a million to one chance against anyone else stumbling up against what he did.”
“That is Monteux’s signature,” the Premier observed, with a queer little tremble in his voice. “I would know it anywhere. Young man,” he added, “it seems to me that your Council of Seven are going to rule the world.”
“They will never want to do that,” Mark assured him. “They will, of course, control the destinies of the world, but the only use they will make of their power will be to establish peace on the earth. My father used to say that in a few hundred years’ time these discoveries of ours will be valueless, for after three hundred years of peace the nation who wanted war would be a nation of lunatics.”
“One more practical question,” the General begged, his voice unsteady with excitement. “You two young men leave us to-day. What happens in Siberia and Far Russia?”
“Every particle of information we have,” Mark replied, “indicates the Russian desire for peace. An expeditionary force will move forward and from some hundred miles in the rear I shall, if necessary, with my corps of helpers, paralyse the whole of the electrical equipment of Russia and destroy as many aeroplanes as are necessary to bring them to an armistice. Prince Cheng and I will then proceed to Moscow and establish there, with the help of many Russians of the best type who are living now in obscurity, a new and moderate form of government. Remember that all this information will come to you automatically. Wherever we are we shall be in communication with you day by day.”
“The other question,” the General continued. “Supposing within the next month some unfriendly nation—let me take the Germans as an example—should make a sudden move against us, you and Prince Cheng would be in Russia, the Council of Seven are widely separated. War might come before you had time to move.”
Mark smiled.
“Naturally, General,” he explained, “you have not yet fully appreciated the powers that we control. Supposing that happened this week, or next, I could guarantee to throw the German army into utter disorder within a radius of a hundred miles anywhere, and if it were necessary I could destroy the whole electrical equipment throughout Germany at the same time, so that commercially as well as from a military point of view she would become inert. That is what I could do with an hour or two notice. But I will tell you this. I am on the brink of one more discovery. To-day I said that I needed a latitude of one hundred miles. In twelve months’ time automatically, by use of an instrument which I am perfecting, I will undertake to direct my disintegrating coils and concentrate them within the radius of a single mile. There is, in short, no limit to our possible control of these disintegrating forces. You will find certain verification of that last statement in the report of your own great scientist.”
The sense of strain was too intense to pass easily away, but soon the new situation seemed to assume reality. A world free from war or the fear of war, barracks turned into factories, oceans empty of battleships. Mr. Mountain rang for the butler and ordered wine.
“This,” he declared, “is probably the most important meeting that has ever been held in any house, under any roof. You two,” he added, “are history-makers indeed.”
“Mine was a small share,” Cheng admitted, “for all the time I had two ambitions. One was to bring peace upon the world. That idea was born in me during my early boyhood in the monastery where I was brought up. When Humberstone and I became friends at Harvard, that desire for peace became like a silent passion in my life but, unlike Mark here, I had another purpose, another goal before me. You know now what it was. I desired to re-establish my country, to bring home to the children of my race a knowledge and appreciation of their past greatness and to lift her back again to where she once stood in culture and wisdom. To that, now that the clash and tumult of warfare is passing into history, I shall give my whole future life.”
The wine had arrived, the glasses were filled. All five men rose to their feet. They all hesitated. The inadequacy of words assailed them. General Levissier’s voice broke as he lifted his glass.
“I used to think,” he said solemnly, “that the day when General Foch walked into
the dining saloon of his train and found there the German Secretary of State and the German Commander-in-Chief waiting to offer their subjection, to plead for an armistice, that the greatest day in France’s history had arrived. I have changed my mind. That scene, dramatic though it was, was, alas, the scene of a sham peace. We five are here to celebrate a greater occasion. We can raise our glasses and drink to the happy and glorious days to come, when the last bullet shall have been spent and every nation in the world shall have laid down its arms.”
Five empty glasses were replaced upon the table. The strain seemed broken. Everyone began talking. The ambassador tapped on the table.
“General,” he said, “and Monsieur le Ministre, I must remind you of one thing. This house is surrounded by gendarmes waiting to arrest Prince Cheng the moment he leaves the place, or Mr. Mark Humberstone. May I send for my secretary, General, and will you get into touch with headquarters?”
“Send for your secretary by all means,” the General replied. “You can let them know at headquarters that they may expect a visit from me within half-an-hour.”
“Levissier and I will both sign absolute safe conducts at once,” the Premier declared, seating himself at the table and drawing some paper towards him.
“And more important still,” the General remarked, “there are some men here, emissaries of the Soviet police, dangerous fellows; who have not yet reported to us. They must be deported straight away or placed under arrest. One thing I can promise both of you,” he added, turning to Mark and Prince Cheng. “Give us an hour and you shall walk as safely through the streets of Paris as though you were in your own home town.”
There was a good deal of telephoning, a brief absence on the part of the General, much writing and signing of papers. The ambassador turned to Mark.
“You will have your things unpacked and stay here, Humberstone,” he begged.
The young man shook his head.
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