“A cat’s-paw!” Immelan gasped. “Australia, New Zealand and India for Japan, new lands for her teeming population; Thibet for you, all Manchuria, and the control of the Siberian Railway!”
“These are dazzling propositions,” Prince Shan admitted, “and yet—what about the other side of the Pacific?”
“America would be powerless,” Immelan insisted.
“So you said before, in 1917,” was the dry reminder. “I did not come here, however, to talk world politics with you. Those things for the moment are finished. I came in answer to your summons.”
Immelan raised himself a little in the bed.
“You meant what you said?” he demanded, with hoarse anxiety. “There was no poison? Swear that?”
Prince Shan moved towards the door. His backward glance was coldly contemptuous.
“What I said, I meant,” he replied. “Extract such comfort from it as you may.”
He left the room, closing the door softly behind him. Immelan stared after him, hollow-eyed and anxious. Already the cold fears were seizing upon him once more.
Prince Shan rejoined Nigel, and the two men drove off to Downing Street. The former was silent for the first few minutes. Then he turned slightly towards his companion.
“The man Immelan is a coward,” he declared. “It is he whom I have just visited.”
Nigel shrugged his shoulders.
“So many men are brave enough in a fight,” he remarked, “who lose their nerve on a sick bed.”
“Bravery in battle,” Prince Shan pronounced, “is the lowest form of courage. The blood is stirred by the excitement of slaughter as by alcohol. With Immelan I shall have no more dealings.”
“Speaking politically as well as personally?” Nigel enquired.
The other smiled.
“I think I might go so far as to agree,” he acquiesced, “but in a sense, there are conditions. You shall hear what they are. I will speak before you to the Prime Minister. See, up above is the sign of my departure.”
Out of a little bank of white, fleecy clouds which hung down, here and there, from the blue sky, came the Black Dragon, her engines purring softly, her movements slow and graceful. Both men watched her for a moment in silence.
“At six o’clock to-morrow morning I start,” Prince Shan announced. “My pilot tells me that the weather conditions are wonderful, all the way from here to Pekin. We shall be there on Wednesday.”
“You travel alone?” Nigel enquired.
“I have passengers,” was the quiet reply. “I am taking the English chaplain to your Church in Pekin.”
The eyes of the two men met.
“It is an ingenious idea,” Nigel admitted dryly.
“I wish to be prepared,” his companion answered. “It may be that he is my only companion. In that case, I go back to a life lonelier than I have ever dreamed of. It is on the knees of the gods. So far there has come no word, but although I am not by nature an optimist, my superstitions are on my side. All the way over on my last voyage, when I lay in my berth, awake and we sailed over and through the clouds, my star, my own particular star, seemed leaning always down towards me, and for that reason I have faith.”
Nigel glanced at his companion curiously but without speech. The car pulled up in Downing Street. The two men descended and found everything made easy for them. In two minutes they were in the presence of the Prime Minister.
CHAPTER XXX
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Mr. Mervin Brown was at his best in the interview to which he had, as a matter of fact, been looking forward with much trepidation. He received Prince Shan courteously and reproached him for not having paid him an earlier visit. To the latter’s request that Nigel might be permitted to be present at the discussion, he promptly acquiesced.
“Lord Dorminster and I have already had some conversation,” he said, “bearing upon the matter about which I desire to talk to you.”
“I have found his lordship,” Prince Shan declared, “one of the few Englishmen who has any real apprehension of the trend of events outside his own country.”
The Prime Minister plunged at once into the middle of things.
“Our national faults are without doubt known to you, Prince Shan,” he said. “They include, amongst other things, an over-confidence in the promises of others; too great belief, I fear, in the probity of our friends. We paid a staggering price in 1914 for those qualities. Lord Dorminster would have me believe that there is a still more terrible price for us to pay in the future, unless we change our whole outlook, abandon our belief in the League of Nations, and once more acknowledge the supremacy of force.”
“Lord Dorminster is right,” Prince Shan pronounced. “I have come here to tell you so, Mr. Mervin Brown.”
“You come here as a friend of England?” the latter asked.
“I come here as one who hesitates to become her enemy,” was the measured reply. “I will be perfectly frank with you, sir. I came to this country to discuss a project which, with the acquiescence of China and Japan, would have resulted in the humiliation of your country and the gratification of Germany’s eagerly desired revenge.”
“You believe in the existence of that sentiment, then?” the Prime Minister enquired.
“Any one short of a very insular Englishman,” the Prince replied, “would have realised it long ago. There is a great society in Germany, scarcely even a secret society, pledged to wipe out the humiliations of the last great war. Lord Dorminster tells me that you are to-day without a secret service. For that reason you have remained in ignorance of the mines beneath your feet. Germany has laid her plans well and carefully. Her first and greatest weapon has been your sense of security. She has seen you contemplate with an ill-advised smile of spurious satisfaction, invincible France, regaining her wealth more slowly than you for the simple reason that half the man power of the country is absorbed by her military preparations. France is impregnable. A direct invasion of your country is in all probability impossible. Those two facts have seemed to you all-sufficient. That is where you have been, if I may say so, sir, very short-sighted.”
“Germany has no power to transport troops in other directions,” Mr. Mervin Brown observed.
Prince Shan smiled.
“You have another enemy besides Germany,” he pointed out, “a great democracy who has never forgiven your lack of sympathy at her birth, your attempts to repress by force a great upheaval, borne in agony and shame, yet containing the germs of worthy things which your statesmen in those days failed to discern. Russia has never forgiven. Russia stands hand in hand with Germany.”
“But surely,” the Prime Minister protested, “you speak in the language of the past? The League of Nations still exists. Any directly predatory expedition would bring the rest of the world to arms.”
Prince Shan shook his head.
“One of the first necessities of a tribunal,” he expounded, “is that that tribunal should have the power to punish. You yourself are one of the judges. You might find your culprit guilty. With what weapon will you chastise him? The culprit has grown mightier than the judge.”
“America—”
“America,” Prince Shan interrupted, “can, when she chooses, strike a weightier blow than any other nation on earth, but she will never again proceed outside her own sphere of influence.”
“But she must protect her trade,” the Prime Minister insisted.
“She has no need to do so by force of arms. Take my own country, for instance. We need American machinery, American goods, locomotives and mining plants. America has no need to force these things upon us. We are as anxious to buy as she is to sell.”
“I am to figure to myself, then,” Mr. Mervin Brown reflected, “a combination of Germany and Russia engaged in some scheme inimical to Great Britain?”
“There was such a scheme definitely arranged and planned,” Prince Shan assured him gravely. “If I had seen well to sign a certain paper, you would have lost, before the end
of this month, India, your great treasure house, Australia and New Zealand, and eventually Egypt. You would have been as powerless to prevent it as either of us three would be if called upon unarmed to face the champion heavyweight boxer.”
“It is hard for me to credit the fact that officially Germany has any knowledge of this scheme,” the Prime Minister confessed.
“Official Germany would probably deny it,” Prince Shan answered dryly. “Official Russia might do the same. Official China would follow suit, but the real China, in my person, assures you of the truth of what I have told you. You have never heard, I suppose, of the three secret cities?”
“I have heard stories about them which sounded like fairy tales,” Mr. Mervin Brown admitted grudgingly.
“Nevertheless, they exist,” Prince Shan continued, “and they exist for the purpose of supplying means of offence for the expedition of which I have spoken. There is one in Germany, one in Russia, and one in China. The three between them have produced enough armoured airships of a new design to conquer any country in the world.”
“Armoured airships?” Mr. Mervin Brown repeated.
“Airships from which one fights on land as well as in the air,” Prince Shan explained. “On land they become moving fortresses. No shell has ever been made which can destroy them. I should be revealing no secret to you, because I believe I am right in saying, sir, that a model of these amazing engines of destruction was first submitted to your Government.”
“I remember something of the sort,” the Prime Minister assented. “The inventor himself was an American, I believe.”
“Precisely! I believe he told you in plain words that whoever possessed his model might, if they chose, dominate the world.”
“But who wants to dominate the world by force?” Mr. Mervin Brown demanded passionately. “We have passed into a new era, an era of peace and the higher fellowship. It is waste of time, labour and money to create these horrible instruments of destruction. The League of Nations has decreed that they shall not be built.”
“Nevertheless,” Prince Shan declared, with portentous gravity, “a thousand of these engines of destruction are now ready in a certain city of China. Each one of the three secret cities has done its quota of work in the shape of providing parts. China alone has put them together. I bought the secret, and I alone possess it. It rests with me whether the world remains at peace or moves on to war.”
“You cannot hesitate, then?” Mr. Mervin Brown exclaimed anxiously. “You yourself are an apostle of civilisation.”
Prince Shan smiled.
“It is because we are strong,” he said, “that we love peace. It is because you are weak that you fear war. I am not here to teach you statesmanship. It is not for me to point out to you the means by which you can make your country safe and keep her people free. Call a meeting of what remains of the League of Nations and compare your strength with that of the nations who have crept outside and lie waiting. Then take the advice of experts and set your house in order. You sacrifice everything to-day to the god of commerce. Take a few men like Dorminster here into your councils. You are not a nation of fools. Speak the truth at the next meeting of the League of Nations and see that it is properly reported. Help yourselves, and I will help you.”
“Will you come into my Cabinet, Lord Dorminster?” the Prime Minister invited, turning to Nigel.
“If you will recreate the post of Minister for War, I will do so with pleasure,” was the prompt reply.
Prince Shan held out his hand.
“There is great responsibility upon your shoulders, Mr. Mervin Brown,” he said. “You will never know how near you have been to disaster. Try and wake up your nation gradually, if you can. Call together your writers, your thinking men, your historians. Encourage the flagging spirit of patriotism in your public schools and universities. Is this presumption on my part that I give so much advice? If so, forgive me. Truth that sits in the heart will sometimes demand to be heard.”
At the Prime Minister’s request, Nigel remained behind. They both looked at the door through which Prince Shan had passed. Mr. Mervin Brown metaphorically pinched himself. He was still feeling a little dazed.
“Is that man real flesh and blood?” he demanded.
“He is as real and as near the truth,” Nigel replied solemnly, “as the things of which he has told us.”
CHAPTER XXXI
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That night, Nigel gave a dinner party on Maggie’s account at the fashionable London hotel of the moment. Invitations had been sent out by telephone, by hurried notes, in one or two cases were delivered by word of mouth. On the whole, the acceptances, considering the season was in full swing, were a little remarkable. Every one was anxious to come, because, as one of her girl friends put it, no one ever knew what Maggie was going to be up to next. One of the few refusals came from Prince Shan, and even he made use of compromise:
My dear Lord Dorminster, will you forgive me if in this instance I do not break a custom to which I have perhaps a little too rigidly adhered. The Prime Minister telephoned, a few minutes after we left him, asking me to meet two of his colleagues from the Foreign Office to-night, and I doubt whether our conference will have concluded at the hour you name.
However, if you will permit me, I will give myself the pleasure of joining you later in the evening, to make my adieux to those of my friends whom I am quite sure I shall find amongst your company.
Sincerely yours,
SHAN.
Maggie passed the note back with a little smile. She made no comment whatever. Nigel watched her thoughtfully.
“I have carried out your orders,” he observed. “Everything has been attended to, even to the colour of your table decorations. Now tell me what it all means?”
She looked him in the face quite frankly.
“How can I?” she answered. “I do not know myself.”
“Is this by way of being a farewell party?” he persisted.
“I do not know that,” she assured him. “The only thing is that if I do decide—to go—well, I shall have had a last glimpse of most of my friends.”
“As your nearest male relative, in fact your guardian,” Nigel went on, with a touch of his old manner, “I feel myself deeply interested in your present situation. If a little advice from one who is considerably your senior would be acceptable—”
“It wouldn’t,” Maggie interrupted quietly. “There are just two things in life no girl accepts advice upon—the way she does her hair and the man she means to marry. You see, both are decided by instinct. I shall know before dawn to-morrow what I mean to do, but until then nothing that anybody could say would make any difference. Besides, your mind ought to be full of your own matrimonial affairs. I hear that Naida is talking of going back to Russia next week.”
“My own affairs are less complex,” Nigel replied. “I am going to ask Naida to marry me—to-night if I have the opportunity.”
Maggie made a little grimace.
“There goes my second string!” she exclaimed. “Nigel, you are horribly callous. I have never been in the least sure that I haven’t wanted to marry you myself.”
Nigel lit a cigarette and pushed the box across to his companion.
“I’ve frequently felt the same way,” he confessed. “The trouble of it is that when the really right person comes along, one hasn’t any doubt about it whatever. I should have made you a stodgy husband, Maggie.”
She sniffed.
“I think that considering the way you’ve flirted with me,” she declared, “you ought at least to have given me the opportunity of refusing you.”
“If Naida refuses me,” he began—
“And I decide that Asia is too far away,” she interrupted—
“We may come together, after all,” he said, with a resigned little sigh.
“Glib tongue and empty heart,” she quoted. “Nigel, I would never trust you. I believe you’re in love with Naida.”
“And I’m not
quite so sure about you,” he observed, watching the colour rise quickly in her cheeks. “Off with you to dress, young woman. It’s past seven, and we must be there early. I still have the wine to order.”
The dinner party was in its way a complete success. Prince Karschoff was there, benign and distinguished; Chalmers and one or two other young men from the American Embassy. There was a sprinkling of Maggie’s girl friends, a leaven of the older world in Nigel’s few intimates,—and Naida, very pale but more beautiful than ever in a white velvet gown, her hair brushed straight back, and with no jewellery save one long rope of pearls. Nigel who in his capacity as host had found little time for personal conversation during the service of dinner, deliberately led her a little apart when they passed out into the lounge for coffee and to watch the dancing.
“My duties are over for a time,” he said. “Do you realise that I have not had a word with you alone since our luncheon at Ciro’s?”
“We have all been a little engrossed, have we not?” she murmured. “I hope that you are satisfied with the way things have turned out.”
“Nothing shall induce me to talk politics or empire-saving to-night,” he declared, with a smile. “I have other things to say.”
“Tell me why you asked us all to dine so suddenly,” she enquired. “I do not know whether it is my fancy, but there seems to be an air of celebration about. Is there any announcement to be made?”
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