Havoc.
by E. Philips Oppenheim.
CHAPTER I
CROWNED HEADS MEET
Bellamy, King"s Spy, and Dorward, journalist, known to fame in every English-speaking country, stood before the double window of their s.p.a.cious sitting-room, looking down upon the thoroughfare beneath.
Both men were laboring under a bitter sense of failure. Bellamy"s face was dark with forebodings; Dorward was irritated and nervous.
Failure was a new thing to him--a thing which those behind the great journals which he represented understood less, even, than he.
Bellamy loved his country, and fear was gnawing at his heart.
Below, the crowds which had been waiting patiently for many hours broke into a tumult of welcoming voices. Down their thickly-packed lines the volume of sound arose and grew, a faint murmur at first, swelling and growing to a thunderous roar. Myriads of hats were suddenly torn from the heads of the excited mult.i.tude, handkerchiefs waved from every window. It was a wonderful greeting, this.
"The Czar on his way to the railway station," Bellamy remarked.
The broad avenue was suddenly thronged with a ma.s.s of soldiery--guardsmen of the most famous of Austrian regiments, brilliant in their white uniforms, their flashing helmets. The small brougham with its great black horses was almost hidden within a ring of naked steel.
Dorward, an American to the backbone and a bitter democrat, thrust out his under-lip.
"The Anointed of the Lord!" he muttered.
Far away from some other quarter came the same roar of voices, m.u.f.fled yet insistent, charged with that faint, exciting timbre which seems always to live in the cry of the mult.i.tude.
"The Emperor," declared Bellamy. "He goes to the West station."
The commotion had pa.s.sed. The crowds in the street below were on the move, melting away now with a m.u.f.fled trampling of feet and a murmur of voices. The two men turned from their window back into the room. Dorward commenced to roll a cigarette with yellow-stained, nervous fingers, while Bellamy threw himself into an easy-chair with a gesture of depression.
"So it is over, this long-talked-of meeting," he said, half to himself, half to Dorward. "It is over, and Europe is left to wonder."
"They were together for scarcely more than an hour," Dorward murmured.
"Long enough," Bellamy answered. "That little room in the Palace, my friend, may yet become famous."
"If you and I could buy its secrets," Dorward remarked, finally shaping a cigarette and lighting it, "we should be big bidders, I think. I"d give fifty thousand dollars myself to be able to cable even a hundred words of their conversation."
"For the truth," Bellamy said, "the whole truth, there could be no price sufficient. We made our effort in different directions, both of us. With infinite pains I planted--I may tell you this now that the thing is over--seven spies in the Palace. They have been of as much use as rabbits. I don"t believe that a single one of them got any further than the kitchens."
Dorward nodded gloomily.
"I guess they weren"t taking any chances up there," he remarked.
"There wasn"t a secretary in the room. Carstairs was nearly thrown out, and he had a permit to enter the Palace. The great staircase was held with soldiers, and d.i.c.k swore that there were Maxims in the corridors."
Bellamy sighed.
"We shall hear the roar of bigger guns before we are many months older, Dorward," he declared.
The journalist glanced at his friend keenly. "You believe that?"
Bellamy shrugged his shoulders.
"Do you suppose that this meeting is for nothing?" he asked. "When Austria, Germany and Russia stand whispering in a corner, can"t you believe it is across the North Sea that they point? Things have been shaping that way for years, and the time is almost ripe."
"You English are too nervous to live, nowadays," Dorward declared impatiently. "I"d just like to know what they said about America."
Bellamy smiled with faint but delicate irony.
"Without a doubt, the Prince will tell you," he said. "He can scarcely do more to show his regard for your country. He is giving you a special interview--you alone out of about two hundred journalists. Very likely he will give you an exact account of everything that transpired. First of all, he will a.s.sure you that this meeting has been brought about in the interests of peace. He will tell you that the welfare of your dear country is foremost in the thoughts of his master. He will a.s.sure you--"
"Say, you"re jealous, my friend," Dorward interrupted calmly. "I wonder what you"d give me for my ten minutes alone with the Chancellor, eh?"
"If he told me the truth," Bellamy a.s.serted, "I"d give my life for it. For the sort of stuff you"re going to hear, I"d give nothing.
Can"t you realize that for yourself, Dorward? You know the man--false as h.e.l.l but with the tongue of a serpent. He will grasp your hand; he will declare himself glad to speak through you to the great Anglo-Saxon races--to England and to his dear friends the Americans.
He is only too pleased to have the opportunity of expressing himself candidly and openly. Peace is to be the watchword of the future.
The white doves have hovered over the Palace. The rulers of the earth have met that the crash of arms may be stilled and that this terrible unrest which broods over Europe shall finally be broken up.
They have pledged themselves hand in hand to work together for this object,--Russia, broken and humiliated, but with an immense army still available, whose only chance of holding her place among the nations is another and a successful war; Austria, on fire for the seaboard--Austria, to whom war would give the desire of her existence; Germany, with Bismarck"s last but secret words written in letters of fire on the walls of her palaces, in the hearts of her rulers, in the brain of her great Emperor. Colonies! Expansion!
Empire! Whose colonies, I wonder? Whose empire? Will he tell you that, my friend Dorward?"
The journalist shrugged his shoulders and glanced at the clock.
"I guess he"ll tell me what he chooses and I shall print it," he answered indifferently. "It"s all part of the game, of course. I am not exactly chicken enough to expect the truth. All the same, my message will come from the lips of the Chancellor immediately after this wonderful meeting."
"He makes use of you," Bellamy declared, "to throw dust into our eyes and yours."
"Even so," Dorward admitted, "I don"t care so long as I get the copy. It"s good-bye, I suppose?"
Bellamy nodded.
"I shall go on to Berlin, perhaps, to-morrow," he said. "I can do no more good here. And you?"
"After I"ve sent my cable I"m off to Belgrade for a week, at any rate," Dorward answered. "I hear the women are forming rifle clubs all through Servia."
Bellamy smiled thoughtfully.
"I know one who"ll want a place among the leaders," he murmured.
"Mademoiselle Idiale, I suppose?"
Bellamy a.s.sented.
"It"s a queer position hers, if you like," he said. "All Vienna raves about her. They throng the Opera House every night to hear her sing, and they pay her the biggest salary which has ever been known here. Three parts of it she sends to Belgrade to the Chief of the Committee for National Defence. The jewels that are sent her anonymously go to the same place, all to buy arms to fight these people who worship her. I tell you, Dorward," he added, rising to his feet and walking to the window, "the patriotism of these people is something we colder races scarcely understand. Perhaps it is because we have never dwelt under the shadow of a conqueror. If ever Austria is given a free hand, it will be no mere war upon which she enters,--it will be a carnage, an extermination!"
Dorward looked once more at the clock and rose slowly to his feet.
"Well," he said, "I mustn"t keep His Excellency waiting. Good-bye, and cheer up, Bellamy! Your old country isn"t going to turn up her heels yet."
Out he went--long, lank, uncouth, with yellow-stained fingers and hatchet-shaped, gray face--a strange figure but yet a power.
Bellamy remained. For a while he seemed doubtful how to pa.s.s the time. He stood in front of the window, watching the dispersal of the crowds and the marching by of a regiment of soldiers, whose movements he followed with critical interest, for he, too, had been in the service. He had still a military bearing,--tall, and with complexion inclined to be dusky, a small black moustache, dark eyes, a silent mouth,--a man of many reserves. Even his intimates knew little of him. Nevertheless, his was the reticence which befitted well his profession.