boxes, fitted one above the other, the upper projecting a little
beyond the lower, and mounted on the apex of the tripod. A third box,
evidently, by the terminals which projected from its cover, the
container of a storage battery, lay between the feet of the tripod,
and wires linked it with the apparatus above. Beside the tripod lay a
small black bag such as doctors are wont to carry.
Von Wetten took a key from his pocket and threw it on the ground.
"Unlock that bag," he said to Herr Haase, and turned towards the
Baron and his host.
Herr Haase picked up the key, unlocked the suitcase, and stood ready
for further orders. The Baron was standing with Bettermann by the
tripod; the latter was talking and detaching some piece of mechanism
within the apparatus. His voice came clearly across to Herr Haase.
"Two blades," he was saying, "and one varies their angle with this.
The sharper the angle, the greater the range of the ray and the
shorter the effective arc. But, of course, this machine is only a
model."
"Quite so," acquiesced the Baron.
"These" his hand emerged from the upper box "are the blades."
He withdrew from the apparatus a contrivance like a pair of brief
tongs, of which the shanks were stout wires and the spatulates were
oblongs of thin, whitish metal like aluminum, some three inches long
by two wide.
"The essence of the whole thing," he said. "You see, they are hinged;
one sets them wider or closer according to the range and the arc one
requires. These plates they are removable. I paint the compound on
them, and switch the current on through this battery."
"Ah, yes," agreed the Baron dreamily. "The compound that has to be
painted on."
The thin face of the inventor turned upon him; the great eyes
smoldered. "Yes," was the answer; "yes. I, I paint it on enough for
three or four demonstrations, and then I throw the rest into the
lake. So my secret is safe, you see."
The Baron met his eyes with the profound ironic calm of his own.
"Safe, I am sure," he replied. "The safer the better. And now, where
would you prefer us to arrange our explosives?"
The other shrugged his shoulders. "Where you like," he said, bending
to the little black hand-bag. "Lay them on the ground or bury them,
or throw them into the lake, if they're waterproof. Only don't put
them too near the house. I don't want any more of my windows broken."
There was a tone of aggression in his voice, and his eyes seemed to
affront them, then strayed in a moment's glance towards the house.
Herr Haase, following his look, had a glimpse of the little wife upon
the upper balcony looking down upon the scene. The young man with the
scar it glowed at whiles, red and angry seemed to make her some sign,
for she drew back out of sight at once.
Herr Haase would have liked to watch the further intercourse of the
Baron and the lean young man; but Von Wetten, indicating to him a
small iron spade, such as children dig with on the sea-beach, and a
pointed iron rod, set him to work at making graves for the little
paper-wrapped packages which he took from the suit-case. The captain
stood over him while he did it, directing him with orders curt as
oaths and wounding as blows, looking down upon his sweating,
unremonstrant obedience as from a very mountain-top of superiority.
The clay was dry as flour, and puffed into dust under the spade;
the slanting sun had yet a vigor of heat; and Herr Haase, in his
tail-coat and his cloth boots, floundered among the little craters
and earth-heaps, and dug and perspired submissively.
As he completed each hole to Von Wetten's satisfaction, that demigod
dropped one or more of his small packages into it, and arranged them
snugly with the iron rod. While he did so, Herr Haase eased himself
upright, wiped the sweat from his brow, and gazed across at the other
two. He saw the young man dipping a brush in a bottle, which he had
taken from the black bag, and painting with it upon the metal plates,
intent and careful; while beside him the old baron, with his hands
clasped behind his back, watched him with just that air of blended
patronage and admiration with which a connoisseur, visiting a studio,
watches an artist at work.
Von Wetten spoke at his elbow. "Fill this in!" he said, in those
tones of his that would have roused rebellion in a beast of burden.
"And tread the earth down on it firmly!"
"Zu Befehl, Herr Hauptmann," answered Herr Haase hastily. But he was
slow enough in obeying to see the young man, his painting finished,
take the bottle in his hand, and toss it over the parapet into the
lake and turn, the great jagged scar suddenly red and vivid on the
pallor of his thin face, to challenge the Baron with his angry eyes.
The Baron met them with his small indomitable smile. "The machine is
ready now?" he inquired smoothly.
"Ready when you are," snapped the other.
Herr Haase had to return to his labors then and lose the rest of that
battle of purposes, of offence offered and refused, which went on
over the head of the waiting machine. Von Wetten left him for a while
and was busy throwing things that looked like glass jars into the
lake. When at last the fifth and final hole was filled and trodden
down under the sore heels in the cloth boots, the others were
standing around the apparatus. They looked up at him as he cast down
the spade and clapped a hand to the main stiffness in the small of
his back.
"All finished?" called the Baron. "Then come over here, my good
friend, or you will be blown up. Eh, Herr Bettermann?"
Herr Bettermann shrugged those sharp shoulders of his; he was
shifting the tripod legs of his machine. "Blow him up if you like,"
he said. "He's your man."
Von Wetten and the Baron laughed at that, the Baron civilly and
perfunctorily, as one laughs at the minor jests of one's host, and
Von Wetten as though the joke were a good one. Herr Haase smiled
deferentially, and eased himself into the background by the parapet.
"And now," said the Baron, "to our fireworks!"
Herr Bettermann answered with the scowl-like contraction of the brows
which he used in place of a nod.
"All right," he said. "Stand away from the front of the thing, will
you? You know yourselves the kind of stuff you've buried yes? Also,
los!"
The old baron had stepped back to Herr Haase's side; as the young man
put his hands to the apparatus, he crisped himself with a sharp
intake of breath for the explosion. A switch clicked under the young
man's thumb, and he began to move the machine upon its pivot
mounting, traversing it like a telescope on a stand. It came round
towards the fresh yellow mounds of earth which marked Herr Haase's
excavations; they had an instant in which to note, faint as the
whirring of a fly upon a pane, the buzz of some small mechanism
within the thing. Then, not louder than a heavy stroke upon a drum,
came the detonation of the buried cartridges in the first hole, and
the earth above them suddenly ballooned and burst like an
over-inflated paper-bag and let through a spit of brief fire and a
jet of smoke.
"Ach, du lieber" began the Baron, and had the words chopped off short
by the second explosion. A stone the size of a tennis-ball soared
slowly over them and plopped into the water a score of yards away.
The Baron raised an arm as if to guard his face, and kept it raised;
Von Wetten let his eyeglass fall, lifted it in his hand and held it
there; only Herr Haase, preserving his formal attitude of obedient
waiting, his large bland face inert, stood unmoved, passively
watching this incident of his trade.
The rest of the holes blew up nobly; the last was applauded by a
crash of glass as one of the upper windows of the house broke and
came raining down in splinters. The lean young man swore tersely.
"Another window!" he snarled. The Baron lowered his arm and let his
breath go in a sigh of relief. "That is all, is it not?" he demanded.
"Gott sei Dank I hate things that explode. But I am glad that I saw
it, now that it is over, very glad indeed!"
There was a touch of added color in the even pink of his face, and
something of restlessness, a shine of excitement, in his eyes. Even
his voice had a new tone of unfamiliar urgency. He glanced to and fro
from Herr Wetten to Herr Haase as though seeking someone to share his
emotion.
Bettermann's thin voice broke in curtly. "It isn't over," he said.
"There's the stuff he" with a glance like a stab at Von Wetten "threw
into the lake. Ready?"
"Ach!" The Baron stepped hastily aside. "Yes; I had forgotten that.
Quite ready, my dear sir quite ready. Haase, my good friend, I think
I'll stand behind you this time."
"Zu Befehl, Excellenz," acquiesced Herr Haase, and made of his
solidity and stolidity a screen and a shield for the master-mind in
its master-body. Herr Bettermann, bending behind his machine, took in
the grouping with an eye that sneered and exulted, jerked his angular
blue-clad shoulders contemptuously, and turned again to his business.
The eye of the machine roamed over the face of the water, seeming to
peer searchingly into the depths of shining blue; the small interior
whir started again upon the click of the switch, and forthwith three
explosions, following upon each other rapidly, tore that tranquil
water-mirror, spouting three geyser-jets into the sun-soaked evening
air. The waves they raised slapped loudly at the wall below the
parapet, and there were suddenly dead fish floating pale-bellied on
the surface.
"Mines!" It was a whisper behind Herr Haase's large shoulder.
"English mines!"
Herr Bettermann straightened himself upright behind the tripod.
"There's a fine for killing fish like that," he remarked bitterly.
"And the window besides, curse it!"
The Baron looked round at him absently. "Too bad!" he agreed. "Too
bad!" He moved Herr Haase out of his way with a touch of his hand and
walked to the parapet. He stood there, seeming for some moments to be
absorbed in watching the dead fish as they rocked in the diminishing
eddies. Herr Bettermann picked up the black cloth and draped it again
over his apparatus. There was a space of silence.
Presently, with a shrug as though he withdrew himself unwillingly
from some train of thought, the Baron turned. "Yes," he said, slowly,
half to himself. "Y-es!" He lifted his eyes to the inventor.
"Well, we have only three things to do," he said. "They should not
take us long. But it is pleasant here in your garden, Herr
Bettermann, and we might sit down while we do them."
He sat as he spoke, letting himself down upon the low parapet with an
elderly deliberation; at his gesture Von Wetten sat likewise, a few
yards away; Herr Haase moved a pace, hesitated, and remained
standing.
"I'll stand," said Bettermann shortly. "And what are the three things
that you have got to do?"
"Why," replied the Baron, evenly, "the obvious three, surely to pay
for your broken window nicht wahr? to pay the fine for killing the
fish, and to pay your price for the machine. There is nothing else to
pay for, is there?"
"Oh!" The young man stared at him.
"So, if you will tell us the figure that will content you, we can
dispatch the matter," continued the Baron. "That is your part to name
a figure. Supposing always" his voice slowed; the words dropped one
by one "supposing always that there is a figure!"
The other continued to stare, gaunt as a naked tree in the evening
flush, his face white under his tumbled hair, the jagged scar
showing, upon it like a new wound.
"You don't suppose you'll get the thing for nothing, do you?" he
broke out suddenly.
The Baron shook his head. "No," he said, "I don't think that. But it
has struck me I may not need my cheque-book. You see, for all I can
tell, Herr Bettermann, the window may be insured; and the police may
not hear of the fish; and as for the machine well, the machine may be
for sale; but you have less the manner of a salesman, Herr
Bettermann, than any man I have ever seen."
The gaunt youth glowered uncertainly. "I'm not a salesman," he
retorted resentfully.
The Baron nodded. "I was sure of it," he said. "Well, if you will let
me, I'll be your salesman for you; I have sold things in my time, and
for great prices too. Now, I can see that you are in a difficulty.
You are a patriotic Swiss citizen and you have scruples about letting
your invention go out of your own country; is that it? Because, if
so, it can be arranged."
He stopped; the lean youth had uttered a spurt of laughter, bitter
and contemptuous.
"Swiss!" he cried. "No more Swiss than yourself, Herr Baron!"
"Eh?" To Herr Haase, watching through his mask of respectful
aloofness, it was as though the Baron's mind and countenance together
snapped almost audibly into a narrowed and intensified alertness. The
deep, white-fringed brows gathered over the shrewd pale eyes. "Not a
Swiss?" he queried. "What are you, then?"
"Huh!" the other jeered, openly. "I knew you the moment I saw you.
Old Herr Steinlach, eh? Why, man, I've been expecting you and getting
ready for you ever since your blundering, swaggering spy there" with
a jerk of a rigid thumb towards Von Wetten "and this fat slave" Herr
Haase was indicated here "first came sniffing round my premises. I
knew they'd be sending you along, with your blank cheques and your
tongue; and here you are!"
He mouthed his words in an extravagance of offence and ridicule; his
gaunt body and his thin arms jerked in a violence of gesticulation,
and the jagged scar that striped his face pulsed from red to white.
The old baron, solid and unmoving on his seat, watched him with still
attention.
"Not a Swiss?" he persisted, when the young man had ceased to shout
and shrug.
For answer, suddenly as an attacker, the young man strode across to
him and bent, thrusting his feverish and passion-eaten face close to
the other man's. His forefinger, long, large-knuckled, jerked up; he
traced with it upon his face the course of the great disfiguring scar
that flamed diagonally from the inner corner of the right eye to the
rim of the sharp jaw.
"Did you ever see a Swiss that carried a mark like that?" he cried,
his voice breaking to a screech. "Or an Englishman, or a Frenchman?
Or anybody but but" he choked breathlessly on his words "or anybody
but a German? Man, it's my passport!"
He remained yet an instant, bent forward, rigid finger to face, then
rose and stepped back, breathing hard. The three of them stuck,
staring at him.
Von Wetten broke the silence. "German?" he said, in that infuriating
tone of peremptory incredulity which his kind in all countries
commands. "You, a German?"
The lean youth turned on him with a movement like a swoop. "Yes me!"
he spat. "And a deserter from my military service, too! Make the best
of that, you Prussian Schweinhund!"
"Was!" Von Wetten started as though under a blow; his monocle fell;
he made a curious gesture, bringing his right hand across to his left
hip as though in search of something; and gathered himself as though
about to spring to his feet. The Baron lifted a quiet hand and
subdued him.
"Yes," he said, in his even, compelling tones. "Make the best of
that, Von Wetten."
Von Wetten stared, arrested in the very act of rising. "Zu Befehl,
Herr Baron," he said, in a strained voice, and continued staring. The
Baron watched him frowningly an instant, to make sure of his
submission, and turned again to Herr Bettermann where he stood, lean
and glowering, before them.
"Now," he said, "I am beginning to see my way dimly, dimly. A
deserter a German and that scar is your passport! Ye-es! Well, will
you tell me, Herr Bettermann, in plain German, how you came by that
scar?"
"Yes," said Bettermann, fiercely, "I will!"
Behind him, where the house windows shone rosy in the sunset, Herr
Haase could see upon the lower balcony the shimmer of a white frock
and a face that peeped and drew back. The little wife was listening.
"It was the captain of my company," said Bettermann, with a glare at
Von Wetten. "Another Prussian swine-dog like this brute here." He
waited. Von Wetten regarded him with stony calm and did not move.
Bettermann flushed. "He sent me for his whip, and when I brought it,
he called me to attention and cut me over the face with it."
"Eh?" The old baron sat up. "Aber-"
"Just one cut across the face, me with my heels glued together and my
hands nailed to my sides," went on Bettermann. "Then 'Dismiss!' he
ordered, and I saluted and turned about and marched away with my
smashed face. And then you ask me if I am a Swiss!" He laughed again.
"But," demanded the Baron, "what had you done? Why did he do that to
you?"
"Didn't I tell you he was a Prussian swine?" cried Bettermann. "Isn't
that reason enough? But, if you will know, he'd seen me speak to a
lady in the street. Afterwards me standing to attention, of course!
he made a foul comment on her, and asked me for her name and
address."
"And you wouldn't tell him?"
"Tell him!" cried Bettermann. "No!"
Herr Haase saw the girl on the balcony lean forward as though to hear
the word, its pride and its bitterness, and draw back again as though
to hear it had been all that she desired.
"Von Wetten!" The Baron spoke briskly. "You hear what Herr Bettermann
tells me? Such things happen in the army do they?"
Von Wetten shrugged. "They are strictly illegal, sir," he replied,
formally. "There are severe penalties prescribed for such actions.
But, in the army, in the daily give-and-take of the life of a
regiment, of course, they do happen. Herr Bettermann," very stiffly,
"was unfortunate."
Betterman was staring at him, but said nothing. The Baron glanced
from Von Wetten to the lean young man and shook his head.
"I am beginning I think I am beginning to see," he said. "And it
seems to me that I shall not need that cheque-book. Herr Bettermann,
I am very sure you have not forgotten the name of that officer."
"Forgotten!" said the other. "No, I've not forgotten. And, so that
you shan't forget, I've got it written down for you!"
He fished a card from the breast-pocket of his blue shirt. The Baron
received it, and held it up to the light.
"Captain Graf von Specht, the Kaiserjaeger," he read aloud. "Ever
hear of him, Von Wetten?"
Von Wetten nodded. "Neighbor of mine in the country, Excellenz," he
replied. "We were at the cadet-school together. Colonel now; promoted
during the war. He would regret, I am sure."
"He will regret, I am sure," interrupted the Baron, pocketing the
card. "And he will have good cause. Well, Herr Bettermann, I think I
know your terms now. You want to see the Graf von Specht again here?
I am right, am I not?"
Bettermann's eyes narrowed at him. "Yes," he said. "You're right.
Only this time it is he that must bring the whip!"
Herr Haase's intelligence, following like a shorthand-writer's
pencil, ten words behind the speaker, gave a leap at this. Till now,
the matter had been for him a play without a plot; suddenly
understanding, he cast a startled glance at Von Wetten.
The captain sat up alert.
"Certainly!" The old baron was replying to young Bettermann. "And
stand to attention! And salute! I told you that I would agree to your
terms, and I agree accordingly. Captain that is, Colonel von Specht
shall be here, with the whip, as soon as the telegraph and the train
can bring him. And then, I assume, the machine."
"Pardon!" Captain von Wetten had risen. "I have not understood." He
came forward between the two, very erect and military, and rather
splendid with his high-held head and drilled comeliness of body.
"There has been much elegance of talk and I am stupid, no doubt; but,
in plain German, what is it that Colonel von Specht is to do?"
Bettermann swooped at him again, choking with words; the captain
stood like a monument callous to his white and stammering rage, the
personification and symbol of his caste and its privilege.
It was the Baron who answered from his seat on the parapet, not
varying his tone and measured delivery.
"Colonel von Specht," he said, "is to bring a whip here and stand to
attention while Herr Bettermann cuts him over the face with it. That
is all. Now sit down and be silent."
Captain von Wetten did not move. "This is impossible," he said.
"There are limits. As a German officer, I resent the mere suggestion
of this insult to the corps of officers. Your Excellency."
The Baron lifted that quiet hand of his. "I order you to sit down and
be silent," he said.
Captain von Wetten hesitated. It seemed to Herr Haase, for a
flattering instant, that the captain's eyes sought his own, as though
in recognition of a familiar and favorable spirit. He tried to look
respectfully sympathetic.
"Very good, your Excellency," said Von Wetten, at length. "The
Emperor, of course, will be informed."
He turned and stalked away to his former place. The Baron, watching
him, smiled briefly.
"Well, Herr Bettermann," said the Baron, rising stiffly, "it will not
help us to have this arrangement of ours in writing. I think we'll
have to trust one another. Our chemists, then, can come to you for
the formula as soon as you have finished with Colonel von Specht?
That is agreed yes? Good! And you see, I was right from the
beginning; I did not need my cheque-book after all."
He began to move towards the house, beckoning Captain von Wetten and
Herr Haase to follow him. Herr Haase picked up the empty suit-case,
stood aside to let Von Wetten pass, and brought up the rear of the
procession.
At the foot of the wooden steps that led up to the veranda, the Baron
halted and turned to Bettermann.
"One thing makes me curious," he said. "Suppose we had not accepted
your terms, what would you have done? Sold your machine to our
enemies?"
Bettermann was upon the second step, gauntly silhouetted against the
yellow wood of the house. He looked down into the elder man's strong
and subtle face.
"No," he answered. "I meant to at first, but I haven't purged the
German out of me yet and I couldn't. But I'd let your army of slaves
and slave-drivers be beaten by its own slavery as it would be and you
know it. I wouldn't take a hand in it; only, if anything happened to
me; if, for instance, I disappeared some night, well, you'd find the
machine and the formula in the hands of the English, that's all!"
He turned and led the way up the wooden steps. It seemed to tired
Herr Haase, lugging the suit-case, that Captain von Wetten was
swearing under his breath.
He was not imaginative, our Herr Haase; facts were his livelihood and
the nurture of his mind. But in the starved wastes of his fancy
something had struck a root, and as he rode Thun-wards in the front
seat of the car, with the suit-case in his lap and the setting sun in
his eyes, he brooded upon it. It was the glimpse of the little wife
in the balcony the girl who had lived with the scar upon her
husband's face and in his soul, and had leaned forward to eavesdrop
upon his cruel triumph. Behind him, the two demi-gods talked
together; snatches of their conversation tempted him to listen; but
Herr Haase was engrossed with another matter. When the Prussian
colonel, one living agony of crucified pride, stood for the blow, and
the whip whistled through the air to thud on the flesh of his
upturned face would she be watching then?
He was still thinking of it when the car drew up at the hotel door.
"Upstairs at once," directed the Baron, as he stepped hastily to the
sidewalk. "You too, my good Haase; we shall want you."
In the Baron's upper room, where that morning he had suffered the
torture of the boot, Herr Haase was given a seat at the little
writing-table. The Baron himself cleared it for him, wiping its piles
of papers to the floor with a single sweep of his hand.
"Get ready to write the telegrams which we shall dictate," he
commanded. "But first will you be able to get them through in code?"
"Code is forbidden, your Excellency," replied Herr Haase, in his
parade voice. "But we have also a phrase-code, a short phrase for
every word of the message which passes. It makes the telegram very
long."
"Also gut!" approved the Baron. "Now, Von Wetten, first we will wire
the Staff. You know how to talk to them; so dictate a clear message
to Haase here."
Von Wetten was standing by the door, hat and cane in hand. His face,
with its vacant comeliness, wore a formality that was almost austere.
"Zu Befehl, Excellenz," he replied. "But has your Excellency
considered that, after all, there may be other means? I beg your
Excellency's pardon, but it occurs to me that we have not tried
alternative offers. For instance, we are not limited as to money."
The Baron made a little gesture of impatience, indulgent and
paternal. He leaned a hand on the table and looked over Herr Haase's
head to the tall young officer.