Von Koenitz from the first had played his hand with a skill which from a diplomatic view left nothing to be desired. The extraordinary natural phenomena which had occurred coincidentally with the first message of Pax to the President of the United States and the fall of Cleopatra"s Needle had been immediately observed by the scientists attached to the Imperial and other universities throughout the German Federated States, and had no sooner been observed than their significance had been realized. These most industrious and thorough of all human investigators had instantly reported the facts and their preliminary conclusions to the Imperial Commissioners, with the recommendation that no stone be left unturned in attempting to locate and ascertain the causes of this disruption of the forces of nature. The Commissioners at once demanded an exhaustive report from the faculty of the Imperial German University, and notified Von Koenitz by cable that until further notice he must seek in every way to delay investigation by other nations and to belittle the importance of what had occurred, for these astute German scientists had at once jumped to the conclusion that the acceleration of the earth"s motion had been due to some human agency possessed of a hitherto unsuspected power.
It was for this reason that at the first meeting at the White House the Amba.s.sador had pooh-poohed the whole matter and talked of snowstorms in the Alps and showers of fish at Heidelburg, but with the rending of the northern coast of Africa and the well-attested appearances of "The Ring"
he soon reached the conclusion that his wisest course was to cause such a delay on the part of the other Powers that the inevitable race for the secret would be won by the nation which he so astutely represented. He reasoned, quite accurately, that the scientists of England, Russia, and America would not remain idle in attempting to deduce the cause and place the origin of the phenomena and the habitat of the master of the Ring, and that the only effectual means to enable Germany to capture this, the greatest of all prizes of war, was to befuddle the representatives of the other nations while leaving his own unhampered in their efforts to accomplish that which would make his countrymen, almost without further effort, the masters of the world. Now the easiest way to befuddle the scientists of the world was to get them into one place and befuddle them all together, and this, after communicating with his superiors, he had proceeded to do. He was a clever man, trained in the devious ways of the Wilhelmstra.s.se, and when he set out to accomplish something he was almost inevitably successful. Yet in spite of the supposed alliance between Kaiser and Deity man proposes and G.o.d disposes, and sometimes the latter uses the humblest of human instruments in that disposition.
IX
The Imperial German Commissioner for War, General Hans von Helmuth, was a man of extraordinary decision and farsightedness. Sixty years of age, he had been a member of the general staff since he was forty. He had sat at the feet of Bismarck and Von Moltke, and during his active partic.i.p.ation in the management of German military affairs he had seen but slight changes in their policy: Ma.s.s--overwhelming ma.s.s; sudden momentous onslaught, and, above all, an attack so quick that your adversary could not regain his feet. It worked nine times out of ten, and when it didn"t it was usually better than taking the defensive.
General von Helmuth having an approved system was to that extent relieved of anxiety, for all he had to do was to work out details. In this his highly efficient organization was almost automatic. He himself was a human compendium of knowledge, and he had but to press a b.u.t.ton and emit a few gutturals and any information that he wanted lay typewritten before him. Now he sat in his office smoking a Bremen cigar and studying a huge Mercatorial projection of the Atlantic and adjacent countries, while with the fingers of his left hand he combed his heavy beard.
From the window he looked down upon the inner fortifications of Mainz--to which city the capital had been removed three months before--and upon the landing stage for the scouting planes which were constantly arriving or whirring off toward Holland or Stra.s.sburg. Across the river, under the concealed guns of a sunken battery, stood the huge hangars of the now useless dirigibles Z^{51~57}. The landing stage communicated directly by telephone with the adjutant"s office, an enormous hall filled with maps, with which Von Helmuth"s private room was connected. The adjutant himself, a worried-looking man with a bullet head and an iron-gray moustache, stood at a table in the centre of the hall addressing rapid-fire sentences to various persons who appeared in the doorway, saluted, and hurried off again. Several groups were gathered about the table and the adjutant carried on an interrupted conversation with all of them, pausing to read the telegrams and messages that shot out of the pneumatic tubes upon the table from the telegraph and telephone office on the floor below.
An elderly man in rather shabby clothes entered, looking about helplessly through the thick lenses of his double spectacles, and the adjutant turned at once from the officers about him with an "Excuse me, gentlemen."
"Good afternoon, Professor von Schwenitz; the general is waiting for you," said he. "This way, please."
He stalked across to the door of the inner office.
"Professor von Schwenitz is here," he announced, and immediately returned to take up the thread of his conversation in the centre of the hall.
The general turned gruffly to greet his visitor. "I have sent for you, Professor," said he, without removing his cigar, "in order that I may fully understand the method by which you say you have ascertained the place of origin of the wireless messages and electrical disturbances referred to in our communications of last week. This may be a serious matter. The accuracy of your information is of vital importance."
The professor hesitated in embarra.s.sment, and the general scowled.
"Well?" he demanded, biting off the chewed end of his cigar. "Well? This is not a lecture room. Time is short. Out with it."
"Your Excellency!" stammered the poor professor, "I--I----The observations are so--inadequate--one cannot determine----"
"What?" roared Von Helmuth. "But you said you _had_!"
"Only approximately, your Excellency. One cannot be positive, but within a reasonable distance----" He paused.
"What do you call a reasonable distance? I supposed your physics was an exact science!" retorted the general.
"But the data----"
"What do you call a reasonable distance?" bellowed the Imperial Commissioner.
"A hundred kilometres!" suddenly shouted the overwrought professor, losing control of himself. "I won"t be talked to this way, do you hear?
I won"t! How can a man think? I"m a member of the faculty of the Imperial University. I"ve been decorated twice--twice!"
"Fiddlesticks!" returned the general, amused in spite of himself. "Don"t be absurd. I merely wish you to hurry. Have a cigar?"
"Oh, your Excellency!" protested the professor, now both ashamed and frightened. "You must excuse me. The war has shattered my nerves. May I smoke? Thank you."
"Sit down. Take your time," said Von Helmuth, looking out and up at a monoplane descending toward the landing in slowly lessening spirals.
"You see, your Excellency," explained Von Schwenitz, "the data are fragmentary, but I used three methods, each checking the others."
"The first?" shot back the general. The monoplane had landed safely.
"I compared the records of all the seismographs that had registered the earthquake wave attendant on the electrical discharges accompanying the great yellow auroras of July. These shocks had been felt all over the globe, and I secured reports from Java, New Guinea, Lima, Tucson, Greenwich, Algeria, and Moscow. These showed the wave had originated somewhere in Eastern Labrador."
"Yes, yes. Go on!" ordered the general.
"In the second place, the violent magnetic storms produced by the helium aurora appear to have left their mark each time upon the earth in a permanent, if slight, deflection of the compa.s.s needle. The earth"s normal magnetic field seems to have had superimposed upon it a new field comprised of lines of force nearly parallel to the equator. My computations show that these great circles of magnetism centre at approximately the same point in Labrador as that indicated by the seismographs--about fifty-five degrees north and seventy-five degrees west."
The general seemed struck with this.
"Permanent deflection, you say!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
"Yes, apparently permanent. Finally the barometer records told the same story, although in less precise form. A compressional wave of air had been started in the far north and had spread out over the earth with the velocity of sound. Though the barographs themselves gave no indication whence this wave had come, the variation in its intensity at different meteorological observatories could be accounted for by the law of inverse squares on the supposition that the explosion which started the wave had occurred at fifty-five degrees north, seventy-five degrees west."
The professor paused and wiped his gla.s.ses. With a roar a Taube slid off the landing stage, shot over toward the hangars, and soared upward.
"Is that all?" inquired the general, turning again to the chart.
"That is all, your Excellency," answered Von Schwenitz.
"Then you may go!" muttered the Imperial Commissioner. "If we find the source of these disturbances where you predict you will receive the Black Eagle."
"Oh, your Excellency!" protested the professor, his face shining with satisfaction.
"And if we do _not_ find it--there will be a vacancy on the faculty of the Imperial University!" he added grimly. "Good afternoon."
He pressed a b.u.t.ton and the departing scholar was met by an orderly and escorted from the War Bureau, while the adjutant joined Von Helmuth.
"He"s got him! I"m satisfied!" remarked the Commissioner. "Now outline your plan."
The bullet-headed man took up the calipers and indicated a spot on the coast of Labrador:
"Our expedition will land, subject to your approval, at Hamilton Inlet, using the town of Rigolet as a base. By availing ourselves of the Nascopee River and the lakes through which it flows, we can easily penetrate to the highland where the inventor of the Ring machine has located himself. The auxiliary brigantine _Sea Fox_ is lying now under American colours at Amsterdam, and as she can steam fifteen knots an hour she should reach the Inlet in about ten days, pa.s.sing to the north of the Orkneys."
"What force have you in mind?" inquired Von Helmuth, his cold gray eyes narrowing.
"Three full companies of sappers and miners, ten mountain howitzers, a field battery, fifty rapid-fire standing rifles, and a complete outfit for throwing lyddite. Of course we shall rely princ.i.p.ally on high explosives if it becomes necessary to use force, but what we want is a hostage who may later become an ally."
"Yes, of course," said the general with a laugh. "This is a scientific, not a military, expedition."
"I have asked Lieutenant Munster to report upon the necessary equipment."
Von Helmuth nodded, and the adjutant stepped to the door and called out: "Lieutenant Munster!"
A trim young man in naval uniform appeared upon the threshold and saluted.
"State what you regard as necessary as equipment for the proposed expedition," said the general.