Virginia Holland’s conversion to the open advocacy of the principles of
monarchy and aristocracy was Waldron’s first sensation in the campaign
in which he began to destroy the American conception of liberty.
Her confession of faith was a liberal outline of the ideals which the
Governor-General had proclaimed in his library. Waldron was elated at
his complete triumph.
Her brief statement and appeal to the women of America to support her
movement of loyalty he ordered printed in every newspaper in the
country. It duly appeared on the front pages, accompanied by a portrait
of the distinguished young convert.
Her first year’s engagements in organizing the Woman’s Imperial Legion
of Honor covered the principal cities of every state.
Her appeal had been received by the women of America with secret rage,
amazement and horror. The Government had commanded their attendance on
her lectures. Her reception at first had been cold and formal. But her
magnetic personality turned the tide. Within a month there was no hall
large enough in America to hold the breathless throngs of women who hung
on her words. And strangest of all, they cheered her with an enthusiasm
that amazed Waldron.
His agents reported this enthusiasm with oft-repeated praise of her
uncanny genius.
The secret of her popularity they had not dreamed. In each town she took
into her confidence but one woman on whose love for country she could
depend with absolute certainty. This woman she swore in secret to
organize an inner circle whose name to them was the Daughters of Jael.
The spies who followed her tour to report to the Governor-General never
reached this inner circle. In it were taken under solemn oath those
whose love for liberty was a religion.
The Daughters of Jael comprised only the wisest women leaders, and with
them the strongest and most beautiful girls in the glory of youth from
twenty to thirty years of age.
They were taught in secret two things--to keep their lithe young bodies
hard and sun-tanned and learn to wield a steel knife whose blade was
eight inches long, slender and keen. When a million had been sworn and
trained the order would come to strike for freedom. The rank and file
knew nothing of this purpose. Only their leaders knew. Each had sworn
to lay their souls and bodies a free offering on their country’s altar
and to obey their commander’s word as the law of God.
It was two years from the beginning before Virginia ventured to meet her
lover in a deep mountain gorge of the inner Sierras.
Their embrace was long and silent. They spoke at last in low,
half-articulate sounds that only love could hear and know.
When the first wave of emotion had spent itself, she asked him eagerly:
“Your last invention--the aerial torpedo?”
“A failure like the rest!” he answered sadly. “Great inventions that
revolutionize warfare have all required years to perfect--the iron-clad
a generation, the submarine ten years, the aeroplane ten years. They
required the genius of hundreds in their experiments and the lives of
thousands. The hope of miraculous inventions in an hour of crisis is
only the vain dream of the novelist. We have ceased to hope for such
deliverance. We are training men to master the already perfected
mechanism of the submarine--thousands of them. Lake, the inventor, is an
admiral. We have a model at work six thousand feet above the sea. I
command the Eagle’s Nest, the camp on a great mountain plateau where we
are training thousands of aviators. On another peak among the stars we
are teaching men to use the range finders and swing big guns to strike a
target at twelve miles. Most important of all we are teaching each and
every man how to use cold steel at close range--”
“You fully accept my scheme then?” she interrupted.
“As an inspiration of God! The staff has tested it with a hundred
hostile suppositions. It is sure to win if you can train a million girls
to co-operate with us in the uprising, win to our cause one man in ten
in the Imperial Army, and wield a knife with deadly power. The only
question is, can you get those girls?”
“I have them already--”
“A million?”
“And more--I had to stop. I could have sworn another million.”
“We will be ready in three months--”
“You can have four--”
“You have fixed the date?”
“Yes. There can be but one--the Emperor’s birthday--”
Vassar clasped Virginia in his arms.
“Dearest--you’re inspired--I swear it!”
“I have positive assurance,” she went on eagerly, “that our girls have
already won more than two hundred thousand soldiers of the enemy who
will join us the night we strike. Every officer will be in his cups that
night. A Belshazzar’s feast, with Waldron as their toastmaster!”
“And not merely in New York--“ he added, “but in every city in
America--on every ship--in every aviation hangar and on board every
submarine--once their guns are in our hands--!”
“We’ll take them--never fear--“ she cried.
“If we can only get our hands on half their rifles, half their machine
guns, half the ships and half the aircraft we’ll win! The fiends of hell
never fought as we shall fight! We’ll get them too--“ he stopped
overwhelmed with emotion. “It’s the knife at close quarters in the dark,
man to man, muscle and steel, and dauntless hearts, that will turn the
trick. How little we’ve traveled after all our boasted science! All your
girls will have to do is to get them drunk that night, rally your
converts, strike down the outer guards--smuggle in a few guns and we’ll
do the rest.
“We’ll give your men more than half their rifles,” Virginia promised.
“And what’s more we will put their trained artillerymen, aviators and
submarine experts out of commission to a man that night. We will detail
two girls for each of these men--there’ll be no blunder--”
“There’s just one thing I don’t like--“ he broke in with clenched fists.
“Yes, I know, my lover!” she smiled.
“You’ve got to make love to those brutes, flatter and cajole them for
weeks. You are risking what we hold more precious than life--”
“We have sworn to give as God has given us--all--”
“I don’t like it--I don’t like it!” he protested bitterly.
She slipped her arms about his neck. Her eyes sought his with yearning
in their depths.
“Never speak or think that thought of me again, my own,” she whispered.
“I, too, know how to die as well as you. This is the third and last
lesson we shall teach the Daughters of Jael before the Day dawns! Those
who give their honor will scorn the cheaper gift of life. The new sun
will rise on a clean and glorious womanhood, redeemed by sorrow and
humbled by a divine passion for country we could learn in no other
school but this!”
She held him at arm’s length and slowly slipped her hands from his and
waved him back.
“No more--until the Day dawns!”
“Until the Day dawns, my love!” he breathed tenderly.
She leaped on her pony and galloped into the solemn night alone--to
deliver her orders to the Daughters of Jael for their third and final
lesson.