Fessenden had found his telegrams awaiting him, and started at once for
Berlin. While the ghosts in Ranata were chuckling their recognition to
the painted superstitions of the stage, he was in the royal palace, in
the comfortable English-looking study overlooking the Schlossplatz. On
the north corner of the huge brown pile floated the purple banner which
informs the people of Berlin that their “Travelling Kaiser” is visiting
at home.
The Emperor was pleasurably at home this evening, for, although he was
too much of a soldier to lounge, he wore a smoking-jacket and sat deep
in one of his English chairs; the color of animation was in his pale
face, and his eyes, always expressive and brilliant, sparkled with a
more personal emotion.
It was night. His courtiers, his ministers, his generals, his
supplicants, were on the other side of the door, and he could be wholly
himself for an hour with the one man who neither feared nor flattered
him, to whom he had given a large portion of his own warm affections,
and who, in return, gave him the sincerest friendship he would ever
know.
Fessenden’s chair was drawn close to the fire, and he was sipping a
Scotch-and-soda. It was a night for a comfortable talk in a warm bright
room, surrounded by books and a man’s more intimate belongings; for the
wind howled about the corner of the palace and dashed the rain against
the glass. Fessenden’s eyes were sparkling also, but with excitement,
and he was more nervous than he usually permitted his manner to betray.
“Within a week,” the Emperor was saying, “the Archduchess will be
summoned to Vienna on one pretence or another. The plan is to make her
a prisoner in her own rooms until she promises to marry the Archduke
Aloys Franz. I suggested him on account of his commanding qualities
as a disciplinarian; you will recall that they married the Princess
Marie Stefanie to him when her liaison with her tenor was discovered.
He imprisoned her on one of his estates, never permitted her to leave
it for a day, and when she lost a front tooth mortified her vanity by
refusing her the services of a dentist--she was a beauty, poor little
thing! As a husband for refractory princesses he is without a peer; and
my indirect suggestion met with instant favor from the Emperor, who is
distracted between the jealousies of the court and the new motive for
disturbance in the caldron of Hungary. The full information--furnished
by the maid of honor and other spies--of her love for you was the last
straw; and much as the Emperor loves peace and quiet, when the moment
comes to act he acts. The Archduchess, of course, will not marry Aloys
Franz. We know her; elaboration of that statement is superfluous. But
several weeks of solitary meditation will probably convince her that,
as her ambitions are thwarted, she may as well marry you and be happy.
Confinement will reduce her to an abnormal state, where love will seem
the only object for living.”
He left his chair and moved restlessly about the room. “I don’t like
it!” he announced in his harsh emphatic voice. “It is unheard of. It is
a dangerous precedent. We shall have other dissatisfied and romantic
princesses following her example. Take one stone out of the monarchical
edifice and it is impossible to foresee the end. God knows, we are
shaky enough now. I tell you frankly, Fessenden, that I should assist
in no such revolution solely out of friendship for even you; but to
get her out of Europe is the less of two evils. I have been called
the trigger of Europe. She is the firebrand charged with dynamite.
She was dangerous enough before. Now that she has fallen in love, the
only thing to do is to marry her to the object as quickly as possible.
Balked, and thrown in upon herself, she would set Europe in flames
merely to distract her mind and gratify some other passion.” He swung
round abruptly and laughed. “I must say, Fessenden, that while I am
delighted to be able to help you get the woman you want, I don’t envy
you. I shouldn’t say she was the sort of woman a man could settle down
and have a comfortable time with.”
“I want nothing more nor less,” said Fessenden; and the Emperor laughed
again, although his generous nature was gratified at the opportunity
to be of service to his friend.
“It will be rather more than less,” he said. “I have known her since
childhood, and while I admire her more in certain respects than any
woman living, I am not precisely blind to her faults. I will confess
that I shook her once, a good many years ago, when I was visiting
Rudolf, and that she bit and scratched me in return. However, the one
man can always manage the woman of strong passions, so I wish you joy.”
“Thanks; and don’t let my domestic prospects worry you. Are you
perfectly sure of your man, by the way?”
“Oh, perfectly. He has the ear of the Emperor and the Crown Prince,
and, while by no means false to them, is so good a friend of mine that
he would do more than that if I asked it of him. Moreover, he has the
confidence of Königsegg.”
“Suppose they should suspect that you put him up to it? That would ruin
everything. They are quite as afraid of you as they are of her.”
“No diplomat in Europe is more discreet--or finer in his methods.
He has dropped the poison by degrees. His first references to the
astonishing popularity of the Archduchess in Hungary were almost
inadvertent, and at the same time accompanied with enthusiastic
comments upon her talents. Her conquest of the Independents was the
last straw. The Emperor has been convinced that they would proclaim her
queen the moment he died. Was it your suggestion that they met her in a
body at the train when she arrived from Transylvania?”
“I put Molnár and one or two others up to it, although they are quite
convinced it was their own idea.”
“I am thankful you are my friend, for I shouldn’t want your finger
in my political pie! Well, Ranata will never see Budapest after this
week--if you are quick enough. If she should devil the poor old Emperor
into his grave while he was trying to bring her to terms, I should not
venture to answer for the consequences. What is your next move? I see
no further. How shall you get her out of the Hofburg? Bribe the guards?
It will be difficult. The Emperor will guard her well. She could hardly
disguise herself and slip out. How shall you manage to communicate with
her?”
“Do not exercise your imagination over possibilities of escape, for
I have no idea of attempting any. I intend to marry her with the
Emperor’s consent. Not very graciously given, perhaps, but still--”
“Oh, Fessenden!” The Emperor spoke impatiently. He had paused on the
hearth-rug, and stood there with his left hand resting lightly on his
hip, the familiar sword-hilt being absent, the right gesticulating
slightly, with a constant movement of the wrist and an occasional
pointing of the index finger. “That, my dear boy,” he added kindly,
“is just the one thing that even you cannot accomplish. That you will
get the Archduchess sooner or later I have no doubt. When a woman like
that loves a man--” He shot his hand up expressively. “It may be that
I shall have an inspiration of some sort and help you further, but I
cannot act openly or I would invite her here. But I have every faith in
your resource.”
“You will have more when I tell you my plan.”
The Emperor’s keen eyes met his, and they measured each other as they
had a habit of doing.
“Well?” asked the Emperor of Germany.
Fessenden stood up and thrust his hands into pockets. His nervousness
had gone, and his eyes were hard and brilliant. “What do you suppose
the Emperor would give to restore the ancient strength and prestige of
Austria?” he asked, in the cool and even tones he employed in his Wall
Street offices. “To obliterate the memory of 1866? To finish his long
and unhappy reign gloriously?”
“What on earth are you driving at? I never heard you talk at random
before.”
“You have never heard me talk at random. What would he give in return
for such a certainty?”
“More than Ranata. But I hate riddles!” His eyes flashed. The blood
burned his cheek. He knew Fessenden, and was sure that he was not
listening to bombast. His curiosity and impatience nearly choked him.
“Come! Come!” he said. “What idea have you in your head? After South
America I am prepared for anything. If you were not such a good fellow
I should hate you--but go on.”
“Perhaps what all the world most wants next to the fulfilment of
its personal desires,” continued Fessenden imperturbably, “is the
obliteration of its most actively malignant forces. The most malignant
force in the world to-day is Russia; in a lesser degree, Turkey. These
countries, by their unredeemable barbarism, compass the utter misery
of more millions of helpless human beings than all the other causes in
the rest of the world that conduce, in the natural order of things, to
unhappiness. Moreover, Russia is the one menace which prevents Europe
and England from enjoying a moment’s security. She creeps and creeps,
and never retraces a step. In far-sightedness Russia is the greatest
genius among nations, and she is absolutely unscrupulous; the tyro in
diplomacy does not trust her, and yet she outwits again and again.
There is a hideous possibility of her eventual triumph, and the day she
weakens the power of England, puts her nose in the Persian Gulf, flows
over Turkey, that day sounds the passing bell of modern civilization.
Therefore, the power or powers that hamstring this anomaly in the
twentieth century, forcing her to crouch with her feet in the sand like
a malignant but helpless sphinx until invading progress has taught her
wisdom--these powers would achieve an immortality in history which they
could compass by means of no other modern conditions. Am I not right?”
The Emperor nodded. He was very pale. Not only had Fessenden pricked
from its drugged sleep one of the passionate hopes of his early
manhood, but he knew that the American was no idle dreamer, that
he had already accomplished the impossible. He had a sensation of
standing spellbound on the threshold of a miraculous future towards
which the great forces within him had moved precisely since the birth
of the worlds. But the impression was hardly realized; his faculties
were concentrated upon the utterance of the man who no longer looked
young, in whose aspect was no trace of the lover of the Archduchess of
Austria, who, indeed, looked little more than an intellect, using a
casual body as a convenient medium. Abbott asked his next question so
abruptly that the Emperor stiffened into an attitude not unlike that of
a midnight sentry alarmed by a sudden footfall.
“You know what I have been trying to do in my factory out West?”
“Well?”
“The experiments are perfected. The kites--and they are as beautiful
as they are deadly--can be sent by electricity to an incalculable
distance, and each one will rain down dynamite enough to kill a
thousand men at a time if they are close enough together. The
generators to charge storage batteries have, by other experiments, been
so reduced in size and weight that they hardly count among the effects
of a travelling army. The enemy could be routed in ten minutes. Even
balloons are not necessary, except for reconnoitring. You also know of
the other invention, no less important. That is perfected. The steel
forts are not only impregnable, but the secret has been discovered of
moving electrically operated machines over any sort of ground. So far,
moving forts, bicycles, automobiles have been useless except on good
roads. These forts will travel without so much as a lowering of speed
over the worst that nature has to offer; there is even an apparatus, on
the principles of the flying-machine, which will carry them over swamps
and rivers. Do you see my drift?”
The Emperor’s face would have looked like wax but for the severity of
its lines. “Good God!” he muttered finally. “If this is true it will
make you the master of the world.”
“It will make you the master of Europe.”
“What riddle now?” He spoke thickly, but involuntarily twitched his
shoulders. He was quick to resent any attempt to manage him.
“The Spanish War has come and gone. I have no use for these new weapons
of war. They must be used at once, for ideas are microbes. A few years
hence--a year hence--and the discoveries may be universal. If I had
never met Ranata I should have presented them to you and told you to
go ahead, and in the name of humanity wipe Russia and Turkey, in the
form they now exist, off the map. I want to see you at the helm while
you are still young, and discouragements and disappointments have not
crushed all the enthusiasm out of you. The world has waited and waited
for you to do the great thing, not realizing your difficulties, and
that it was your purpose to make Germany strong and prosperous before
launching it into a great war; your crusade will be looked upon as
quite in keeping with your character. And you are the only man on this
side of the water capable of handling a great empire. So, I repeat, I
should have offered you this new power in any case. Now I ask you to
use it as a bait for the Emperor of Austria. Owing to your alliance it
would be a natural act; unless you could afford to wait for his death,
which you cannot. Tell him that if he refuses you will swallow him
too. But he can hardly hesitate to snatch at the one compensation for
the failures of his reign and life. Such of the conquered territory
as you may have to yield to him will flow to you naturally at his
death, for his heir could not hold it, and you may be sure that, as
the initiator of so magnificent and beneficent a conquest, and as the
younger and more picturesque of the majesties, you will be the idol of
Austria-Hungary, as well as the hero of the world. France can be as
easily disposed of as Russia, and indeed every intelligent power will
let you alone after your first battle. Of course you can have all the
money you want should you meet with opposition in the Reichstag. That
offer has always stood. As for the excuse for war, it will be simple
enough to whip up a disturbance in the Balkans. A few discreet agents,
a revolutionary committee, surreptitious presents of arms, and Bulgaria
or Macedonia is in flames. A secret understanding with Ferdinand and
he will do anything to get Russia off his back. Then when the pot is
boiling, and the so-called Christians are sprinkling their gore on
their own unspeakable filth, announce to Christendom that Christian
rulers can stand no more, impose impossible conditions on Russia, and
sail in. There will be enough of these weapons of destruction ready
before the end of three months to conquer the whole of Europe, and no
more time is necessary to manipulate the Balkans.”
He paused abruptly, and again the two men stared hard and long at
each other. The pallor and the burning eyes of both testified to the
passionate emotion they controlled. Fessenden had permitted eagerness
to creep neither into his tones nor manner, but he felt as if he were
standing in the dock awaiting a sentence of life or death. The Emperor
felt as if he had been whirled back to the first years of his reign,
when all things seemed possible to a young and indomitable ruler.
And that reign had been one long and desperate struggle between his
autocratic instincts and the deep and persistent desire for the extreme
rights of man among a large division of his subjects. He had given them
much, but they wanted more; and being advised by flatterers, and so far
removed from contact with the masses, he looked upon the greater part
of their demands with angry impatience. But no ruler had ever brought a
more lofty enthusiasm to reform, and he had been thwarted by ignorance,
and conservative stupidity, and personal hatred, until he sometimes
felt that the day might not be far distant when he should shrug his
shoulders and simmer down into the routine of other sovereigns. It was
true he had accomplished many things and he had made a great city of
Berlin and a wealthy state of Prussia; but when he thought of his old
ambitions he felt sick with the futility of life. Fessenden’s abrupt
proposition had given him a moment of unutterable happiness, then
almost paralyzed his faculties. He wondered if he should awake and find
himself alone, still compelled to profess friendship for the enemy of
civilization.
Fessenden continued. “Ranata, of course, will formally renounce all
rights to the throne. But the Emperor’s consent I will have, if only
as a concession of Europe to the United States--a formal recognition
of her absolute equality among nations. I forgot to tell you that the
details of these inventions have been so worked out that no one but my
head electrician and myself knows them all, and the exact combinations.
And he is not only a man of honor, but no crowned head in Europe could
offer him a bribe comparable to what he will receive from me on the day
of your first battle with Russia.”
The Emperor came out of his reverie. “Have you samples here?”
“They are in the custom-house. They have not been examined, and await
your order to pass them through unopened. The electrician is also here.
My father arrives to-morrow. We can have an object-lesson on Saturday.”
“Let us have it by all means,” said the Emperor of Germany.