CHAPTER XIV
THE PLANNING OF CAMPAIGN
Nathaniel h.e.l.lbeam sat ominously calm and unruffled while Elas Peterman told of his meeting with Bull Sternford. He gave no sign whatever. There was just the flicker of a smile of appreciation of Bull"s effrontery when he heard of his response to Peterman"s invitation to sell. That alone of the whole story seemed to afford him interest. For the rest, it had only been the sort of thing he expected.
He waited until the other had finished. Then he stirred in his chair. It was an expression of relief that his long, silent sitting had ended.
"So," he said. "We do not buy him. No. We smash him."
There was obvious satisfaction that the more peaceful process was to be set aside.
He sat blinking at his subordinate in the fashion of a man who is thinking hard, and has no interest in the object upon which he is gazing.
"It is as I think--all the time," he said at last. "That is all right. I make no cry out. It is easy to fight. I would fight always with an enemy. It is good. Now my friend, you have acted so. You bring the man from Sachigo to tell you to go to h.e.l.l. Eh? Well you have thought much?
You have planned for the fight? How is it you make this fight?"
Elas was standing before the desk. He had, yielded his place to this man who was master of the Skandinavia. Now he looked down at the square-headed creature with his gross, squat body. It was a figure and face bristling with venom and purpose; and somehow he was conscious of a sudden lack of his usual a.s.surance.
"Oh, yes," he replied thoughtfully. "I"ve planned--sure. But I guess I"m in the dark a bit. It"s going to cost a deal. It"s not going to be easy. You were ready to buy. It was not necessarily to be the Skandinavia who bought. Well, are you--going to vote the credit for this fight?" He smiled uncertainly. "And to what extent?"
"The limit. Go on."
Peterman nodded.
"There"s no commercial enterprise that can stand idleness. His work must stop. His--"
"That is the A.B.C. of it."
There was sharp impatience in the financier"s biting tone.
"Just so. It is the A.B.C. of it."
h.e.l.lbeam set back in his chair. He clasped his hands across his stomach.
"I will tell you," he said, a wicked smile lighting his deep-set eyes, his cheeks rounding themselves in his satisfaction. "His work will stop.
His mill is far away. There is no protection from attack except that which he can set up himself. He is going away. He will have eighteen hundred miles of water between him and his mill. It should be easy with a good plan and all the money. Listen.
"His work must stop. How? There are ways. His mill may burn. His forests may burn. His men may revolt. They may refuse to work for him. All, or any of these things may serve. There are men at all times ready to carry out these things. You can tell them, or you need not, the way they must act." He shook his head. "You say to them his work must stop; and you pay them more than he can pay them. So his work will stop. That is so?
Yes? Very well. There is ha"f a million dollars that will pay for his work to stop. I say that."
Peterman was startled. He had not been prepared for so sweeping a proposal. He had understood that the man had been prepared to stand at almost nothing in his desire to achieve some end, the nature of which still remained somewhat obscure to him. For all his own lack of scruple in his dealings with those who offended, the calm, fiendish purpose of this man shocked him not a little.
He took the chair usually occupied by his visitors.
"You will pay ha"f a million dollars for this thing?" he demanded, to re-a.s.sure himself.
Self-satisfaction looked out of the eyes of the man behind the desk.
"More--if necessary."
"By G.o.d! You must hate this boy, Sternford."
Peterman"s feelings had broken from under his control.
"Sternford? Psha! It is not Sternford. No."
The smile had gone from h.e.l.lbeam"s eyes. They were fiercely burning.
They were the hot, pa.s.sionate eyes of a man obsessed, of a man possessed of a monomania. Peterman, watching, beheld the sudden change in him. He shrank before the insanity he had so deeply probed.
h.e.l.lbeam sat forward in his chair. His forearms were resting on the desk, and his hands were clenched so that the finger-nails almost cut into the flesh of their palms. His ma.s.sive face was flushed, and the coa.r.s.e veins at his temples stood out like cords.
"Here, I tell you," he cried gutturally, returning in his fury to the native Teuton in him. "Can you hate--yes? Have you known hate? Eh? No.
You the white liver have. You cannot hate. It is not in you. Oh, no. It is for me. Yes. It has been so for years. And I tell you it is the only thing in life. Woman? No. I have known them. They mean little. They are a pleasure that pa.s.ses. Money? What is it when you play the market as you choose? The day comes when you can help yourself. And you no longer desire so to do. Hate? That lives. That feeds on body and brain. That consumes till there is only a dead carcase left. Ah! Hate is for the lifetime. It can leave all those others as nothing. In it there is joy, despair, all the time, every hour of life."
He held up one hand and opened his fingers. Then he slowly closed them with a curious expressive movement of ruthless destruction.
"You hate and you think. You see your vengeance in operation. You see him there in your hand; and you see the blood sweat as you squeeze and crush out the life that has offended. Man, it is a joy that never leaves you till you accomplish this thing. Then, after, you have the memory.
And while you think, even though he is dead, smashed in your grip, he still suffers as you think. Oh, yes."
"And you hate--that way?"
A feeling of sudden fear had taken possession of Peterman. This gross, squat man had become something terrible to him.
"Ja!"
The Teuton leapt in the furious emphasis hurled.
"Oh, ja! I hate. I tell you of it."
The man with the insane eyes picked up a pen. He turned it about in his fingers. Then, suddenly, but slowly, the fingers began to break it. The wood split under their pressure, and the pieces littered the table. He gazed at them for a moment. Then one hand clenched and came down with a crash on the blotting pad. Then he sat back in his chair again, with his cruel eyes gazing straight out at the window opposite.
"It is years now. Oh, yes." A deep breath escaped from between the man"s coa.r.s.e lips. "I ruled the markets. I ruled them so that they obeyed me.
I was the money power of this continent. I did as I chose. So I thought.
Then he came. This man. He did not disturb me. Oh, no. I slept good all the time. Then I woke. I woke to find I was beaten of ten million dollars; and that Wall Street, the markets of the world, were laughing that this schoolmaster, this fool Scotsman from over the water, had picked my pocket while I slept. It was not the money. It was the laugh.
And he got away. Oh, yes. I tell it now. The market knew of it then.
They laughed. How they laughed. So I sat and thought. I had all. There was nothing more to have. And then I learned to hate."
The narrowed eyes came back to the face of the man beside the desk.
There was a sharp intake of breath.
"This mill, this Sachigo, was built out of my money. And the man who built it was the man who robbed me while I slept."
A world of fierce bitterness lay in the final words, and the man listening realised the enormity of the offence, as this man saw it. But he was left puzzled.
"But you would have--bought this Sachigo?" he said, said.
h.e.l.lbeam"s eyes were again turned to the window.