Dinner that evening was again a cheerless meal. It was hard to say why.
All that wealth, discriminating taste, the social arts could devise
was there in profusion. There was an absence of ceremony. Taken as
individuals nothing could have exceeded the personal attraction of
those who graced the famous Doe Hill mahogany, but in a subtle way and
for some hidden reason they refused to coalesce.
Some of the foremost minds of the world had come together. On a normal
occasion the talk of such people must have been copious, salt, full of
marrow; this evening it was tentative, halting, spineless; the hearts
and minds of the speakers were too plainly not in it.
A skeleton was at the feast. Of that fact Saul Hartz was fully aware.
From the moment of arrival the previous day a deadly sense of being
in the enemy’s camp had oppressed him. All that had happened since,
outwardly unimportant though it was, had ministered to it. Each one of
these people, even the hostess herself seemed, so far as possible, to
avoid him. They were forever looking the other way; even in moments of
unavoidable intercourse he felt an odd constraint. And this evening,
in spite of the _mise en scene_, an almost positive sense of disharmony
reached a climax. Course by course the conversation waned. By the time
the meal was at an end, silence hung like a pall over the whole table.
When the ladies left the room, the eight men who remained were
conscious of a momentary lifting of the cloud. But they stayed only
a short time circulating the decanters. A move was made once more to
that wonderful room, the library, whose walls had been furnished so
liberally with the world’s wisdom, for the most part in bindings choice
and rare. The somber magnificence of the drawn curtains, the soft
radiance of the candelabra, the glow from the open hearth, lent to the
scene an austere dignity that was felt by all. Coffee and cigars, and
even the fine liqueurs which were promptly dispensed, came almost as a
desecration to such a sacramental atmosphere.
Less than five minutes after the servants had gone, Lien Weng gave
a quiet signal. The American, George Hierons, and the Frenchman de
Tournel rose abruptly from their chairs and proceeded at once to lock
the two doors of the room. With a ceremonious bow they handed the keys
to Lien Weng.
The Chinaman turned to face Saul Hartz. “Sir, the Court is now
constituted,” he said without a trace of emotion. His English was
perfect, but there was a curiously soft inflection in the low voice.
Saul Hartz, defiance in his air, merely shrugged contemptuous
shoulders. Every sense keenly strung, he had been apprised by this
overt act even before it came.
“My good friends have done me the honor,” Lien Weng continued in a
voice whose timbre was persuasion itself, “to invite me to conduct
these wholly informal proceedings.”
“And you might add ‘wholly illegal’ while you are about it,” said the
Colossus with a sudden gust of anger.
Lien Weng raised a finger with a gravity verging upon the pontifical.
“Legal--illegal--are words--words. This Court--this Council of Seven
deals only with realities.”
“Golf balls a shilling!” In order to express an utter contempt the
Colossus spat in the fire.
“Words--phrases!” The courtesy of a very old civilization rooted in an
immemorial past was in the deep smile of Lien Weng. “I ask you, sir,
to believe that as far as this world is concerned we are about to deal
with a matter of life and death.”
Another gust of rage swept Saul Hartz. “About to murder me, eh?” he
said savagely, “as you murdered Garland the other day, not to mention
Kornileff the Russian, and Yamotoga the Jap, and heaven knows who
besides!”
When the Colossus had spoken he got up from his chair.
“Be seated, pray,” said Lien Weng with his priest’s smile. “It will be
more agreeable for all if you stay as you were.”
“If you intend to stick a knife in me and put me underneath that”--Saul
Hartz pointed to the yawning Tudor fireplace which might easily have
concealed a chasm--“get through with it at once. I’m not in a mood for
cat and mouse.”
Lien Weng certainly looked feline enough as he narrowed his eyes and
yet distended their pupils. His subtle face was luminous with meaning.
“You will be unwise,” he said simply, “not to hear all that is said
to you. It is not our wish to go to the extreme. Sir, your case has
received much consideration. It is our prayer that we may deal with it
in the way of wisdom. I will not add in the way of mercy and justice,
for ‘mercy,’ ‘justice,’ those too are words, and the Council of Seven
deals only with things. And yet its every act is governed by the ideals
we serve. This Council is pledged to do the will of the Time-Spirit
with as little suffering or unhappiness to the object of its attentions
as may consist with the high and noble aim it has in view.”
Saul Hartz, still standing, folded his arms defiantly. But the cold
force of the speaker was not without effect. In spite of a bitter and
deep hostility the Colossus was obliged to abate his anger to the point
of listening to every word spoken by this remarkable man.
“Sir,” continued the President of the Council with the same icy
politeness, “you will do well to know just what it is that has
constituted you the enemy of the human race. In the fewest possible
words I shall hope to make that clear to you. A man of truly
remarkable gifts, a man of creative imagination in the world of common
affairs, you have so adapted your brain to the new order evolved by
modern civilization that you have gained control of the sinister
machine which evokes, creates, molds and directs public opinion.
That is a feat of which our Society makes no complaint. But having
acquired by the exercise of your genius this stupendous power in the
physical world, you are proved to be totally lacking, as was Napoleon,
your prototype before you, in any true or vital sense of the awful
responsibility such a gift confers upon you.”
Each word of this speech Saul Hartz followed with care. But as the
gravamen of the charge was unfolded, he took up Lien Weng sharply.
“By what authority,” he interposed violently, “are you and your fellow
fanatics”--he cast a glance of savage contempt at the pale, tense faces
around him--“constituted your brother’s keeper?”
“By that same authority,” said Lien Weng, “which confers upon you the
power you wield.”
“Whatever power I may wield,” said Saul Hartz, “has the sanction of the
law.”
“Of what law?”
“The law implicit in the usages of all civilized communities.”
“Sir, there we join issue.”
Lien Weng looked solemnly at the others. With an oriental gravity that
raised the act to the plane of ritual, he took a signet ring from the
first finger of his right hand, for no apparent reason pressed it to
his lips and then put it back again. “No law,” he went on in the same
unchanging voice, “of man’s contrivance can be effective unless there
lies behind the moral power to enforce it.”
“I agree.”
“Perhaps you do not realize that you and your friends, the members
of this infamous International Newspaper Ring, are no longer to be
permitted to carry out the policy for which you stand.”
“What is the policy for which we stand?”
“Giantism--world-power--in other words, enslavement and spoliation of
the weak.”
“Arrant nonsense!”
“We shall gain nothing,” said Lien Weng “by bandying words. It has
taken the Society of the Friends of Peace many months to reach a
conclusion in this case of yours; and it has done so only after
complete investigation of all the salient facts. Understand, sir, that
all its verdicts are based upon reason, and that once moved to action
it pursues an undeviating, a relentless course.”
Saul Hartz made a gesture of contempt. “You are an illegal body. At
best you are a murder club. You stand outside the law.”
“Not outside the moral law. Take the case of the teeming, helpless
millions of my Chinese compatriots for whom I speak, of those millions
of unlucky creatures who know themselves impotent to deal with the
marvelous physical forces now controlled by the western mind. For
months, through the agency of your terrible engine the Universal Press,
you have been inciting your Government to shatter Peking. For months,
to this end you have been organizing public opinion by means of false
news and distorted facts. Once the die is cast the yellow and black
races are powerless to cope with the airships, the poison gases, the
high explosives, the dread magics the civilization of the West is
able to hurl upon them. Not a month ago you caused to be wiped out of
existence, by means of bombs rained from the clouds, a native village
in the heart of Africa. Not a year ago a similar thing occurred in
Afghanistan in Upper India.”
“You would hold me responsible for that?”
“Indirectly--yes. Or to look nearer home, consider the case of Ireland.”
“The example is not altogether well chosen,” Saul Hartz spoke with
a scorn he did not try to conceal. “If your precious Society will
condescend to read our newspapers, it will see that we are committed to
a policy of conciliation.”
“Ireland and her affairs have long been a political cat’s-paw for the
Newspaper Ring, the secret power which sways the destinies of mankind.”
“Cheap generalizations,” said Saul Hartz, contemptuously.
“The Society does not share your view. By the light of what has
happened since, it now sees that Ireland and her affairs were a card
played with Luciferian skill to precipitate the world catastrophe. A
masterstroke of policy on the part of antichrist, no doubt. The scheme
was crowned with every success. By the irony of fate, however, that
catastrophe has made it possible to restore the moral law to the world.”
“Of which your Society is the embodiment, I presume?”
“That is so,” Lien Weng bowed gravely. “It is based entirely on the
moral idea.”
“In other words,” said Saul Hartz, “it murders people of whom it
doesn’t approve from the highest motives. A scheme delightfully
convenient, yet not altogether new.”
“The Society makes no claim to novelty. It has existed in a rudimentary
form in the Celestial Empire and throughout many Eastern lands for
thousands of years. In the oldest of all existing civilizations it is
the last resort of the weak against the strong. Those whose minds are
developed on disparate lines from that implacable ‘efficiency’ which
enables the brain of the modern western business man to dominate the
physical world and make life a hell for those who arouse its predatory
instincts, are now banded together in self-defense against the common
enemy of the human race.”
“Who and what is the common enemy of the human race?”
“Those who contrive war. Those who preach war. Those who spread rumors
of war. The Society has one aim, and one aim only. By every means in
its power it ensues Peace.”
“Even at the price of murder.”
“Murder is a word, a phrase, determined by the man-made statutes
of a ballot-box democracy, presided over by the occupant of the
Woolsack whom a supine government failed to hang in the year 19----.
Human nature does not vary in the matter of its law courts. The man
who is hanged is never so finished a criminal as the man who hangs
him. Murder, I repeat, is a word, a phrase. Peace is tangible, a
possible ideal, a definite object. For many months now, to give one
more instance of its activities, the Universal Press, of which you,
sir, are the controlling spirit, owing allegiance to none, has been
working in a hundred subterranean ways to embroil the United States
with Great Britain. What it has to gain by these periodical rifts the
stock exchanges of London and New York are best able to say. But the
Universal Press, whose power is now manifest in every land of the
habitable globe, may yet choose, if unable to surmount the Trust Law,
that bulwark and defense of the plain American citizen, to involve the
two nations in a fratricidal conflict, with unchallenged world-power
a fitting crown for the victor. Antichrist would then be indeed
enthroned.”
The Colossus again expressed a contempt of such reasoning.
“Evidently,” he said in his husky whisper, “your precious Society has
not condescended to read the article in yesterday’s _Planet_ which I
myself dictated.”
“Let me assure you, sir,” said Lien Weng, “that it has done so and
marked it carefully. But such admirable sentiments, of which your
newspapers have an inexhaustible supply, is no more than dust for the
eyes of fools. The Universal Press has taken for its motto the famous
saying of our own Lao-tsze, the prophet of Taoism, ‘Learn to throw dust
in order to cast it.’ Or in words which the western brain may find
easier to understand, ‘Learn to defile the wells of truth behind a
curtain of poison gas.’”
“One has heard all this so often,” said the Colossus, plaintively.
“Can’t you tell us something new?” And he yawned cavernously in the
face of the others.
Lien Weng paid no regard to the interruption. He went quietly on, “Much
of the political news the Universal Press transmits so diligently from
America to England is willfully distorted; much of the political news
it transmits from England to America is equally false.”
“So you say,” laughed the Colossus.
“Let us take one example. The report of the speech in Congress of
Senator Larcom which you print on page 8 of yesterday’s _Planet_ is
quite inaccurate.”
“How do you know that?”
“Senator Larcom has already sent by cable his own version of his
speech to a member of the Society. You may read it if you choose, and
compare it with the garbled fragments which appear in the _Planet_
newspaper and which the Universal Press has already flashed round the
world. At this moment it is being read, assimilated, acted upon in Hong
Kong, Calcutta, Sydney, Montreal and a hundred-and-one other centers of
public opinion.”
At a sign from Lien Weng, the cabled account from Washington was
produced by George Hierons, the person to whom it was sent. It was laid
on the table.
“Read,” said Lien Weng.
“It doesn’t interest me,” said the Colossus. “Besides, it proves
nothing. Mistakes of this kind are bound to arise.”
“That may or may not be so,” said Lien Weng. “But they occur far too
often. And as far as Britain and the United States are concerned they
always err upon one side. That is not the side of amity. Less than
a month ago you put in the mouth of an eminent English politician a
phrase he never used, and sowed it broadcast. Tardy denial followed,
but a calculated lie had a clear start of seventy-two hours. Infinite
damage has thereby been done to a growing reputation and to the cause
we have at heart.”
“What sort of a reputation is it, I ask you,” said Saul Hartz,
insolently, “that can suffer infinite damage because a single letter is
omitted accidentally from a single word its owner uses?”
“There lies your skill,” a hoarse voice broke in. It was that of John
Endor. With lustrous eyes and a face inhuman in its pallor he was
following each word of the argument with intensity. “All of us here can
only regard it as devilish.”
“Yes--devilish,” said Lien Weng, in his soft and gentle voice. “But
even sheer wickedness sometimes overreaches itself. That simple act
of omission, in the peculiar circumstances of the case, was vile. Yet
already it has had a recoil. The Society of the Friends of Peace owes
to that foul blow the presence here this evening of John Endor.” The
President bowed gravely to the politician. “He will prove a source of
infinite strength to our counsels. We welcome such a man with open
arms.”
A look of disgust flashed from the eyes of Saul Hartz. “A man is not to
be envied,” he said, “who mixes himself up with a thing of this kind.
If Mr. Endor is the man I take him to be,” Hartz looked Endor steadily
in the face, “he is going to regret very bitterly his association with
you and your fellow anarchists and murderers.”
“Time alone can prove,” said Lien Weng impassively, “whether John Endor
will have anything to regret in his whole-hearted devotion to the cause
of peace. Meanwhile his presence here cannot fail to give weight to the
deliberations of the Council of Seven.”
“And if I may say so,” interposed George Hierons, “authority to its
acts. Without the help of John Endor and all that he stands for, the
Society might not have been able to deal with the most inimical power
of the modern world.”
“You pay poor me far too high a compliment,” said the Colossus with a
down-looking smile. But all present knew, when they saw it, the pride
which apes humility. “However, what does it matter?” With an air of
resignation Saul Hartz folded his arms. “And you are getting tedious,
aren’t you? Why not cut the cackle and get to the hosses? Before you
proceed to nick my throat, or knock me on the head, or dope my mineral
water is there any little thing in which I can oblige you?”
“We are coming, sir, to that.” The civilized politeness of Lien Weng
was an odd contrast to Saul Hartz’s ill-breeding. “On behalf of the
Society I am about to place before you a formal proposition. It is
this: The Society is prepared to buy your entire holding, including the
Founder’s shares, in the Universal Press.”
“I shall be glad to learn your price.”
“Within three months the Society is prepared to pay you the sum of two
hundred millions sterling. But to this offer it attaches one condition.
You will be required to give an undertaking never again to engage in
any form whatever of journalistic enterprise. In other words, sir, you
must give up the formidable, nay, terrible, machine you control, and
you are expressly debarred from ever constructing another one like it.”
“And in the event of this offer being refused?” Saul Hartz asked.
For a moment there was silence. Lien Weng looked at the circle of
tense faces. But it was the American who answered the question. As a
preliminary he slowly removed a large cigar from the corner of his
mouth.
“Pretty bad for the coo, sir,” he said in a voice like a child’s. “Take
it from me.”
“I expect so,” was Saul Hartz’s only comment.
Silence came again. The eight men smoked steadily.
Lien Weng it was who spoke at last. “We don’t ask you to make up your
mind here and now. You shall have eight weeks from to-morrow, Monday,
in which to reach a decision.”
“Eight weeks. Thank you,” said the Colossus dryly. And he began to chew
the end of his cigar.
“Think it over, my friend,” said Hierons, in a cheerful and
business-like tone. “One thousand million dollars--paid down within
three months. Think it over.”
“I will.” The Colossus knocked the ash from the end of his cigar. “I
promise you that. And now perhaps you’ll let me out of this mousetrap.”
“For the time being, sir, the business is concluded.” And Lien Weng
returned the keys of the room to the Frenchman and the American who
promptly unlocked the doors of the library.