Almost beside himself, Lawrence resisted all of Edestone’s efforts to get him back into the elevator.
“You damn’ dirty Dutchman, I’ll pay you for this!” he yelled over his shoulder, as he struggled to break loose from the firm grip which held him, and get at the Count.
It was not a time to permit of argument. Overpowering him with his great strength, Edestone simply dragged him back, and flung him into a corner of the car, where he sat crying like a baby with uncontrollable rage.
After he had started the lift, however, Edestone went over and patted him soothingly on the shoulder.
“I am sorry, old man,” he said regretfully, “awfully sorry! He thought it was I, and I almost wish it had been.”
This brought Lawrence back to himself. He knew that Edestone meant every word he said and, jumping to his feet, he threw his arms around his friend’s neck.
“Bo!” he exclaimed, half-laughing, half-sobbing, “you are a king among men!” little dreaming of the amount of truth there was in what he said.
A moment later he dropped back into the vernacular, where he was more at home.
“You are the best sport I ever knew,” he said, “and I am nothing but a rotten squealer! Forgive me, and I will try to be good. But, Bo! that did hurt!” The tears came to his eyes once more. “He was such a nervy little chap!”
By this time they had gotten to the roof, where they found Black, Stanton, and James eagerly awaiting them.
“Where is Fred?” asked Black, noting his absence as the other two stepped out to join them.
“Dead by God!” Lawrence started again to become hysterical. “That devil, Count von Hemelstein, killed him!”
“Shut up, Lawrence!” broke in Edestone sharply. “Cut out that swearing and get to work. We have no time to lose.”
In the same quick, authoritative tone, he issued his orders to the others, as they stood staring at the news, each in his different way showing his breeding. Black was commencing to whine; Stanton with a scowl of rage was in sympathy with Lawrence; while James, demonstrating his years of training, stood statue-like with hand behind his back, leaning forward as if to catch his master’s next order, and carry it out with perfect decorum.
“Have you locked the door at the foot of the stairs? Ah! That is good!” he exclaimed, as he saw that they had barricaded the door of the bulkhead by putting a piece of timber between it and the coping around one of the skylights.
It had grown quite dark in the interval, but in the glare of the great searchlights which were playing upon her he could plainly see above him the Little Peace Maker which had swung into a position directly over the Embassy, and was now slowly descending.
She was not over a thousand feet above the roof as she hung there, three of her great searchlights bearing steadily on three different points in the city, and giving to her the aspect of an enormous spyglass standing on its gigantic tripod, and by its own weight forcing the feet of the tripod into the soft earth, as the ship slowly settled.
Shrapnel shells were exploding all about her, and at times she was almost entirely enveloped in smoke. Between the reports of the heavier artillery could be heard the staccato spatter of bullets on her iron sides as the machine-guns sprayed her from end to end. Now and then one of the gunners would reach one of her searchlights, and as the ray was extinguished, one almost expected to see her topple in the direction of her broken support, but in each case it was quickly replaced by another, and she continued to drop nearer and nearer to the earth.
Excepting for the searchlights there was no sign of life on board. Silently and without response of any kind, she came. But as she approached nearer, and the angle of the German guns was still further reduced, although they must already have been doing frightful damage in all parts of the city, the shrapnel and small bullets could be heard screaming over the heads of the little party on the roof.
“It is getting pretty hot here, and we had better lie down,” Edestone said. But the words were hardly out of his mouth before Stanton fell with a bullet in his head, and James sat down, probably more abruptly than he had ever done anything before in all his life.
“I beg pardon, sir,” he observed with a little gasp, “but I think, sir, as how they have got me in the leg, sir.”
They all dropped down. Stanton was dead, and James was bleeding badly from the flesh-wound in his leg.
“That was the fellow in that tower over there.” Lawrence made a reconnoissance. “He is now shooting straight at us.”
“This has got to stop.” Edestone frowned. “Lawrence send this message. No cipher; I would rather have them catch this.
“Tell ‘Specs’ first to haul down the U. S. flag and run up my private signal. Then he is to silence every gun he can find that is bearing on us, and train a machine-gun on the door of the bulk-head, ready to fire when I give the signal by throwing up my hat.
“Take Lawrence up to the instrument, Mr. Black,” he directed, turning to Black who was giving “first aid” to the unfortunate valet. “I will do what I can for James.”
When the elevator with Lawrence and the electrician had gone up above the level of the roof, leaving the shaft open down into the house, he could distinctly hear the soldiers running up the stairs. At any moment now they might be hammering on the door at the foot of the stairway leading to the roof.
He hated the idea of killing those innocent Germans, mere machines, as they were, in the hands of a Master, who with his entire entourage had become sick with a mania which took the form of militarism, imperialism, and pan-Germanism. But after the death of his two fellow-countrymen—for at heart he was still true to the land of his birth, although to save her he had just renounced the flag—he felt that he was justified in what he was about to do.
With a silent prayer for the peasant mothers who were soon to lose their dear ones, he commended their souls to God, and not as these mothers, poor benighted creatures, had done, to their Emperor.
He was startled from these sorrowful reflections by the white glow of a searchlight from the Little Peace Maker sweeping across the roof, and playing hither and thither. Evidently, “Specs” had received his order, and was now feeling about for the bulkhead door.
A moment later he located it. Immediately the night was made hideous with the roar of the guns from the airship, as they sowed bursting shells in all directions, and carried death and destruction to the heart of this great and wonderful city, built up stone by stone, and standing as a living monument to one of the greatest people on the face of the earth—a people that science teaches are the very last expression of God’s greatness shown in His wonderful evolution of matter into His own image. And for what? That one family might maintain the position given to one of their ancestors in the remote, dark, and grovelling ages of the past for prowess of which a modern prizefighter might be proud, but for acts to which he with a higher standard might not stoop.
The telling response of the Little Peace Maker soon put an end to the storm of shrapnel and bullets which had been singing, whistling, buzzing, and screaming about them, and Edestone might have been able to stand up, but for the pertinacity of the snipers, those serpents of modern warfare, who were searching every dark corner of the roof.
Matters were fast coming to a climax, however. By the time that Lawrence and Black had returned from sending the wireless message, and had crawled over to where Edestone lay, the soldiers had broken down the lower door, and were pounding at the upper, which “Specs” was holding as with a rapier point at the heart of a fallen foe, ready to strike at the slightest movement.
Crawling over to the elevator shaft, Edestone called down a warning in a loud voice to those below:
“I have a machine-gun trained on the top of the stairs! If you order your men to break that door down, I will order my guns to fire, and will kill them faster than you can drive them up!”
For a moment the only response to his challenge was silence. Then a voice rang out which he had heard before, arrogant and commanding:
“As God has ordained that I and none other should rule the earth, with Him alone, I shall. By my Imperial order, and with His assistance, bring that man to me, dead or alive!”
A brief pause ensued. Edestone could hear the officers urging on their men. Suddenly pistol-shots rang out, and with a mad rush they came on. The door swayed and shivered under the impact. It split and shattered. Finally it fell.
“May God have mercy on his soul!” murmured Edestone, and he tossed his hat high in the air.
“Specs” from his look-out caught the signal; and instantly the doorway became a writhing, shrieking mass of wounded humanity. Like vaseline squeezed out of a tube, it was forced out of the opening by the pressure of those behind and spread in wider and wider circles across the roof, until the aperture itself was choked and stopped with bodies.
But Edestone and his companions were spared the full measure of this sickening sight, as the rapid manoeuvres of the Little Peace Maker compelled them to devote their attention to her.
As the great ship descended to within about ten feet of the chimney-tops, men appeared on her lower bridge and dropped over the insulated ladder which extended almost to where the refugees lay.
Picking James up and putting him on his back where he clung like a baby, Edestone ran for the ladder, quickly followed by Lawrence and Black. He reached the bridge just in time to turn James over to one of the crew, and extend his assistance to Lawrence, who had received a shot in one hand, and was rather dizzily holding on to the ladder with the other. Eventually, though, they all gained the bridge, and with their rescuers already there raced up the gangway under a perfect hail of bullets for the open doorway at the top. But before the last man had passed through, two of the sailors had been shot, and had fallen to their death on the roof.
As they entered the ship, they were met by “Specs,” Captain Lee, Dr. Brown, and other officers in uniforms which at the first glance might have been taken for those of the New York Yacht Club, except for the insignia on their caps which was a combination of Edestone’s private signal and the letters L. P. M. Edestone, however, interrupted their attempt to salute him.
“Please waive all ceremony,” he said. “We have wounded men here that must be attended to.”
At this, Dr. Brown immediately came forward, and after ordering Lawrence and James to the hospital gave a start as his glance fell upon Edestone.
“You did not tell me that you yourself were wounded, sir,” he exclaimed; and then for the first time Edestone discovered that his face, hands, and clothing were covered with blood which was streaming from a wound above his temple.
He was about to permit himself also to be examined, when there was heard from below the detonation of one of the Kaiser’s big mortars; and pulling away from the Doctor, he called an excited order to “Specs”:
“Throw on your full charge, and lift her as fast as you can!”
He ran to the gangway in time to see the wire carried up to a great height by the ball from the mortar settling down across the Little Peace Maker about midships. It was falling now, and would soon come in contact with the ship.
When it did, there was a slight jar perceptible, but no such result as the enemy had hoped. The wire was so quickly fused, accompanying an explosion giving out an intense light, that it seemed to shoot to the earth like a streak of lightning, setting fire to or knocking down everything that lay in its path.
Another and another mortar shot followed until the sky seemed to be filled with falling wires which were swinging, twisting, and snapping above him. The Little Peace Maker was the centre of an electrical storm, and was sending back by every wire messages of death to those who were striving to bring her down.
The ship was rising very rapidly now, however, and almost before Edestone had time to sing out, “Steady now, as you are,” she was 3000 feet above the German capital, and out of range of the wire-throwers.
While Lawrence’s hand was being dressed by one of the assistant surgeons, he had an opportunity of observing how perfect were the appointments of the operating room to which he had been taken. The orderlies and nurses moving about were all dressed in spotless white gowns and caps. The doctor and those assisting him in cleaning and dressing the slight flesh-wound which had been inflicted looked at their patient through holes in a cap that completely covered their heads and faces. Every appliance was provided for perfect cleanliness and sanitation, and the apparatus was on hand to permit of any operation of modern surgery, no matter how complicated.
From where he sat, he could see into another room exactly similar where James was having the injury to his leg attended to with the same scrupulous care; and he had passed, as he was brought in, a long room which he was told was one of the surgical wards, and where he had seen several men on hospital cots. The surgical wards, he was further informed, were on the starboard side of the ship, and not connected in any way with the sick bay which lay over on the port side.
With his great love for ships and machinery, Lawrence was impatient to get away and make a tour of inspection of this strange craft upon which he had embarked; but while he was waiting he occupied himself in his usual fashion by giving vent to his high spirits and making a joke out of everything.
“Well, Doc,” he remarked to the surgeon, “you certainly have got one nifty little butcher shop, but I want to tell you, before one of those Ku-Klux throw me down and slap the gas bag in my face, that I have no adenoids, and that my appendix was cut out by an Arabian doctor who threw a handful of sand into me to stop the bleeding. If you would like to study German sausages, though, there is a pile of it down there on the roof.” And even he shuddered as he recalled that awful carnage.
A bright-looking chap, dressed in the smart uniform of a steward on a gentleman’s yacht, appeared at the door, but was not allowed to come in by Lawrence’s aseptic guardians. He had been sent down by Edestone to inquire as to the condition of the wounded, and to announce to Lawrence that if he felt well enough to join him, dinner would be ready as soon as he was. He begged, the messenger said, that Mr. Stuyvesant would go directly to his room and dress, and allow him to have the pleasure of showing him over the ship after dinner. If he would let the quarter-master’s department have his measure, he would be fitted out.
Wild horses could not have restrained Lawrence from such an invitation, much less a little scratch on the hand; and his injury having been dressed by this time, he was about to set out with the messenger, when James appealed to him from the next room, begging to be allowed to look after his master’s clothes.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he urged, showing his embarrassment at not being able to stand, “but I am the only one who knows how Mr. Edestone likes his dinner clothes laid out, and his whole evening will be spoiled without me, sir. I only ask to be allowed to break in the new man, sir, as starting right in laying out a gentleman’s clothes is half the battle, sir.”
“Don’t you think, you have had enough of a battle for one day, you dear old fighting fossil?” asked Lawrence in a tone of real affection, for there is nothing which draws men together, regardless of rank, more quickly than to fight on the same side, and he could not help but admire the cool manner in which the valet had borne himself under fire.
“Thank you, sir, but mightn’t I be allowed to see to his bath, sir? A drop of hot water in it turns his stomach for a week. Just let me do that, and I will come straight back to these very kind persons.” He glanced about at the men of science with the condescending manner of the English upper servant in dealing with the shopkeeper class.
But Lawrence shook his head. “I’m sorry, James, but—” he bowed low to the grinning circle of doctors and nurses, and assumed his most grandiloquent air—“you are now in the hands of the only acknowledged ruling class of the twentieth century, who hold you with a grip of steel, but whose touch is as gentle as a mother’s kiss. So get out your knitting, Old Socks; you are doomed.”
He turned with a laugh and a new impersonation to the surgeon as he left the room.
“Thank you, Doc. You’ve cert’nly been kind to me, a poor working girl. Just send the bill to Mr. Edestone. He is my greatest gentleman friend.”
In his room, which was reached by an elevator, he found the ship’s tailor waiting for him; but after this functionary had taken his measure and gone, he had an opportunity to look around.
He was in a room, he found, a parlour or sitting-room, about fifteen by twenty, neatly but handsomely furnished, and suggesting to him in its general appearance the owner’s apartments on the largest and most perfectly equipped yachts. There was this difference, however, that nothing about it indicated that it was ever off an even keel. There were no racks or other contrivances to suggest that it was prepared to turn in any direction at an angle of forty-five degrees, and which to the land-lubber causes qualms even while the ship is still tied to the dock.
It might indeed have been a handsome living-room in a bachelor’s apartment, but for the windows, which at the first glance seemed to be of the ordinary French casement form, running down to the floor, and looking as if they might open out onto a balcony; but to his surprise, he found, when he pulled aside the heavy curtains, that they looked into a perfectly blank white wall about two inches from the glass.
Adjoining the living-room was a bedroom furnished in similar style with the same sort of windows, and beyond, Lawrence found as attractive a bath-room as ever welcomed an American millionaire after a hot day in his office, or a game of polo.
After a boiling tub and a freezing shower, in the pink of condition—and nothing else—he went back into the bedroom.
“Now what,” he had wondered, “will the Fairy Godmother have for me in the way of a union suit, and a pair of jumpers?”
But he had not wondered very hard. He found, as he knew he would, for he had yachted with Edestone before, a complete outfit, not forgetting the cocktail, which was standing on the table as quietly and innocently as if it had always been there, although in reality it had just been placed there by a man who, with years of experience in listening to the sounds that come from a gentleman’s bathroom, had timed its arrival to the second.
Nor was it one of those cocktails that are poured from a bottle, and served hot out of a silver-snouted shaker on a sloppy waiter, but a masterpiece from the hands of an artist, who took pride in his handiwork.
With the modesty of a chorus girl with a good figure on a “first night,” he toasted the valet with much ceremony.
Soon he was dressed in the mess jacket of a petty officer, and putting a yachting cap jauntily on his head, he went out to seek his friend. The valet told him he would find Mr. Edestone in the breakfast room, and he was shown thither by an officer who was waiting for him.
As he passed along, he could not divest himself of the idea that he was on board Edestone’s yacht, the Storm Queen again, only that everything here was on a larger scale. The breakfast room, he discovered, was on the same deck but farther forward, and was reached by passing through a large room furnished as a general living-room.
Edestone came forward to greet him with a rather melancholy expression on his face. He was dressed in a yachtsman’s dinner jacket which fitted him perfectly, and with his bandaged head, he looked more than ever the sea lord. His rank of Captain was shown by the stripes on his arm.
The room was, as one would expect Edestone to have in his New York or country house, simple but handsome.
He had just been giving some orders about the windows which were of the same form and size as those Lawrence had remarked in his own room, and like them opened against a wall; but at Lawrence’s appearance, he interrupted these instructions.
“I am glad to see you aboard.” He presented his hand, which Lawrence took with his left. “I had looked forward to your first trip with me with so much pleasure. But how different it is from the way I had pictured it. I cannot get Fred, Stanton, or my two sailors out of my mind.”
Lawrence’s own face saddened, but for Edestone’s sake he endeavoured to speak philosophically.
“The fortunes of war, old man. Why grieve? You certainly were not to blame.”
For a moment there was silence between them; then Edestone, as if attempting to shake off his gloomy reflections, struck a lighter note.
“How do you like being a pirate, Lawrence?” he smiled.
“Great! The dream of my life, with you for a captain!”
So they sat down to dinner. The men attending to their wants moved about unheard and almost unseen in the shadow outside the circle of soft light which fell only on the table. The room was filled with an indescribable aroma of comfort and good cheer. A newly-lighted fire crackled on the hearth, for it had suddenly become quite cold. Indeed, it was with difficulty Lawrence could realize that but a few hours before they had been in the midst of battle and sudden death, and that, as they sat, down there five times the height of the Eiffel Tower below them was the Embassy from which they were still removing the dead, or aiding the dying.
As he looked at Edestone with his sad, brooding eyes, he felt all at once as if his friend had been taken away from him, and had been lifted to a place so exalted, that for the life of him, he could not have taken the liberty of speaking until he was first addressed.
The dinner went on, and though the food was delightful and the wines perfect, both men merely toyed with what was on their plates, while Lawrence gulped his champagne as if he were trying to get its effect quickly in order to throw off this strange new diffidence and restraint which he now felt in the presence of his oldest and dearest friend.
He tried to imagine that they two were cruising alone on the Storm Queen, as they had so often done, and that this was just one of many evenings that they had spent in this way together; but
All was perfectly quiet. If there were storage batteries on board, they had been charged. There was no shovelling of coal; no shrieking and banging of doors in the boiler room, nor banking of fires. The only thing that remained true to tradition was the ship’s bell. It had just sounded out five bells.
The silence was at last broken by Edestone; but, although he spoke, it was more as if he were merely letting his pensive thoughts run on.
“How different this has been from the way I had planned it. How different, too, has been your home-coming, old man—for the Storm Queen was like home to you in the old days.”
But Lawrence by this time was beginning to feel the effects of champagne, and was certain that unless he very soon did something to lift the pall that had fallen on them, he himself would be dissolved in tears.
“I don’t know what your plan was,” he said; “but don’t you worry about my home-coming. The thing that ought to worry you is my leave-taking. The L. P. M. has got the Storm Queen beat a mile, and I am booked for life. And, by the way, what is my rank on this ship? My old position of room clerk on the Storm Queen won’t go here, as I don’t suppose you intend to have any ‘cuties’ on board, not even for the New London week.”
“No.” Edestone consented at last to smile. “I am afraid, Lawrence, those days are all over for me. My little house of cards has fallen about me, and I have serious work before me, if I wish to build it up again. I have been thinking, and thinking very hard. From the moment that I saw poor Fred roll down the stairs of the Embassy, I knew that my first plan had failed. When Germany discovers that the United States is not back of me, she will apologize, and you know how quickly our present Administration will accept the apology, and how quickly they will disclaim any responsibility for my acts, if it means a fight?”
Lawrence nodded.
“Germany,” went on Edestone, “will then call on all the neutral nations to join her in bringing me, an outlaw, to earth. This will give her a common cause with them, and she will hope in that way to strengthen her position relative to the Allies. She does not know my relationship with England, but she will undoubtedly declare that I am one of the means England is using to subjugate the world.”
“And is there nothing you can do?” asked Lawrence.
“My last and only hope is that tomorrow, after they have realized the uselessness of opposing me, they will listen to a proposition of peace—without honour, from their old standard; but with great honour, from the standard that I intend to establish. I propose to send what is practically an ultimatum; and that is, that if they do not immediately open negotiations looking toward peace, I will sink every German battleship that floats, and destroy every factory in which guns, explosives, or any of the munitions of war are manufactured.”
“Me for the junk business,” exclaimed Lawrence with an inspiration. “Oh, you Krupps!”
But Edestone paid no heed to the frivolous interruption. “It is my intention,” he continued, “to give sufficient notice, so that if they are willing to admit my supremacy, there need be no loss of life.”
He halted, as an officer had just come in, and was standing after saluting, waiting for Edestone to stop speaking.
“The look-outs report, sir, that there are several Taubes climbing up toward us. What are your orders, sir?”
“Close everything down, except one of these.” Edestone pointed to a window. “Expose no lights.”
After the man had retired, he said to one of the servants in the room: “Put out the lights, and bring us two cloaks.”
When the lights had been put out, Lawrence saw for the first time that during dinner the solid cubes of steel, the size of the windows, had noiselessly rolled back, leaving a square aperture or passage-way through the six-foot thickness of the armour-plate, and forming a sort of loggia into which they stepped. It was a beautiful night, and through the clear, rarefied atmosphere the stars seemed to Lawrence brighter than he had ever seen them before, while down below them he could just see the lights of Berlin.
The explosions of the motors of the Taubes could be plainly heard, but as yet nothing could be seen of them.
“What do you suppose those mosquitoes expect to do against us with their pop-guns and tomato cans?” asked Lawrence.
“I do not know.” Edestone shook his head. “Perhaps they are just coming up to look us over. They will keep out of sight, and as they may not know that we are protected on top, will perhaps try to drop one of their tomato cans on us. That is, if they can get close enough. I hardly think that they will risk a miss, and drop bombs on their own capital, so long as the Only One Who Seems To Count In Germany is in the midst of his beloved people.”
The Taubes could be heard on all sides, as if they were climbing in great circles around the Little Peace Maker. There seemed to be at least a dozen of them, although owing to the confusion of sounds as they crossed and re-crossed, it was impossible to count them.
At last, though, when judging by the noise they were about on the same level as the ship, Edestone turned to an officer who was standing by him.
“Tell Commander Anderson to load all of the big guns with a full charge of black powder only, and fire them all off at the same time.
“And, Lawrence,” he advised his friend, “when you hear a bell ringing, stand on your toes, open your mouth, stick your fingers in your ears, and if you’ve never been in Hell before, prepare yourself for a shock.”
Hardly had he gotten the words out of his mouth, when bells began ringing all over the ship. In just exactly one minute, Lawrence thought he had been blown into bits, as he was lifted and thrown from side to side against the steel walls of the passage. The noise was so great that his ears seemed unable to record it, and it was made known to him by the air pressure which seemed to be crushing him to death. The rush of air down his throat was choking him, while his very insides seemed to be turning over and over in their effort to escape. A dizziness and nausea followed, and he had to lean against his friend, trying to catch his breath in the thick, black smoke with which they were enveloped.
“This is Hell all right,” he managed to gasp.
“That is the worst you will ever get,” said Edestone. “It was noise that I was after, and black powder makes it. Your experience would not have been half so bad had the guns been loaded or had I used smokeless.”
The ship which had trembled from stem to stern under the tremendous concussion was floating now as quietly as a toy balloon, while the wind was rolling up and pushing before it a great cloud of smoke which obscured the sky. On all sides there was perfect stillness, broken only now and again by the last explosion of gas caught in the cylinders of the Taubes by the sudden stoppage of the engines. The airmen were volplaning to earth as fast and as silently as they could.
“Well, that ought to hold them for a while,” commented Lawrence in a tone which showed that he was almost himself again.
“And make them a little bit more amenable to reason in the morning,” added Edestone, and he laughed, for action with him always drove away the blue devils.
“With that settled, too, we will just have time before turning in, to inspect my quarters,” he continued. “Tomorrow I will introduce you to ‘Specs’ and Captain Lee, and you can go with them at eleven o’clock on their tour of official inspection. They will show you the fire drill, the life-balloon drill, the gun drill, the kitchen, and the cows. But now I want you to see a different side of the ship. We will look at my quarters, then at my guest rooms, and finally at my royal suite or state apartments as I call them.”
He then took Lawrence through room after room, which were arranged in the form of a horseshoe, starting on the port side with his breakfast room, and working around to the starboard side with its opening toward the stern of the ship.
On the port side were Edestone’s apartments—living-room, library, or den, bedroom, dressing-room, bath-room, and gymnasium. On the starboard were a number of guest rooms arranged in suites of parlour, bedroom, and bath, while at the crown of the arch was a large dining-room in which fifty persons could sit down to dinner comfortably.
The centre of the horseshoe was the large room through which he had passed, and like the general meeting room of a large country house was filled with all known kinds of games—instruments and devices to amuse that most unfortunate class of human beings who have no resources within themselves, and must play some foolish game, or do some foolish puzzle in order to get through the life which seems to hang so heavily on their hands.
From this they passed to a lower deck about amidships, to a room about eighty feet by one hundred and twenty feet, which extended the full width of the ship and up three decks. At one end of this large and handsome room was a raised platform arranged like the Speaker’s desk in the House of Representatives at Washington with the desks at lower levels for stenographers, clerks, and attendants, while around the room in concentric circles were large comfortable seats and desks, also like a Senate Chamber, only more luxurious in appointments, as though it were to receive a more distinguished body of men than the Senate of the United States, if that were possible.
“This,” said Edestone, “is where I intend to hold my Peace Conference, and when you see the names of the distinguished men who are to sit here, and the apartments that I have arranged for them and their suites, you will perhaps be glad to take your old position of room clerk.”
Then after showing his companion through these magnificent “royal suites,” as he called them, all furnished and equipped in the most sumptuous fashion, he suggested that they had better turn in.
“We will hope and pray for the best in the morning,” he said, as he bade Lawrence good-night.
The sun was streaming through the windows when Lawrence awoke the next morning. The valet had come in shortly before to throw back the curtains with a slam, and by moving about the room, slapping up shades and dropping boots, make the usual noises of a well-trained valet at that time of the morning.
“Mr. Edestone is already up, sir,” he said when he saw that he had succeeded in waking Lawrence, “and is having his breakfast in his own apartments. Will you have yours here or will you go to the breakfast room?”
“Breakfast room,” elected Lawrence sleepily. “What time is it?”
“Eight o’clock, sir. What will you have for breakfast, sir?”
“Anything and eggs,” said Lawrence, and was about to turn over and go to sleep again when he realized where he was, and leaping out of bed to the window in one bound stepped out into the loggia.
The Little Peace Maker had dropped down and was now only about a thousand feet up; and when he looked down from his balcony, he could see that she had changed her position so as to float exactly over the Palace. It almost seemed to him as if he could step off and onto the roof of this great pile of masonry. The airship, too, must have just moved into this position, as was shown by the excited way in which the little people below him were running away in every direction.
He had his bath, and hurriedly dressing went into the breakfast room, where he found Edestone, who had finished his breakfast and was waiting for him, while reading from a lot of slips of paper which he was turning over in his hand. The master of the ship was dressed all in white and looked refreshed after a good night’s rest.
“Good-morning, Lawrence,” he greeted him. “Did you sleep well?”
“Like a top.”
“And how is your hand?”
“I had almost forgotten it, only I did get the dressings wet while taking my bath, but that will give me an excuse for passing the time of day with the doctors. How is your head?”
“Oh, that does not amount to anything,” said Edestone. “It will be well in a week. Have you seen the morning papers?” With a smile he handed him a sheet on which was printed all the news of the day which the wireless man had picked up during the night.
“The United States has not been heard from,” he commented as he glanced it over. “I wonder what the Southern Baptist Union School Children will think of me now? You know the Secretary of State thought I was a Baptist. And as for him, why he will leave the State Department and stay away until it gets too hot in Florida, or the lecturing season is all over, while the President will write a most scholarly note to all of the Powers telling them how much he loves them, and what a glorious thing it is to be an American. He will then give an unqualified invitation to all of the dark-skinned downtrodden criminals of Europe to come over and be sprinkled with the holy water of citizenship, after they have made their mark to their naturalization papers which have been read to them by their interpreter.
“London reports that the news from Germany has filled the entire country with new confidence,” he went on, “and that the Londoners have given themselves over to the most un-English and thoroughly Latin demonstrations by parading the streets and singing songs and indulging in another Mafeking. I see, too, that Lord Rockstone is reported to have said that he thought now the war would not last as long as he had expected. The King has called a special meeting of the Cabinet for today at 4 o’clock.
“Reports come from Rome that Italy will enter the war immediately, and the papers point out the fact that now since her friend America has joined the Allies it is high time that Italy should take her position.
“Petrograd reports that they have lost 100,000 men but have captured 250,000 Austrians.
“Constantinople,” he went on reading, “declares that the Dardanelles are impregnable and that the city is perfectly quiet, but the Sultan and half of his harem have moved to his summer residence.”
He laid down the printed sheet. “I have had no communication yet from down there,” he said as he pointed down in the direction of the Palace. “My international law department is drawing up a proclamation which I will send as soon as it is finished. It will be along the lines that I spoke of to you last night, but framed in more diplomatic language. These are the latest bulletins I was just reading over when you came in.”
Then while Lawrence sat eating his breakfast, Edestone continued to read now and then bits of the different press notices.
“Listen to this,” he said with a laugh. “‘The twenty Taubes sent up to make a night attack on the American airship inflicted great injury. After using up all their ammunition and bombs they were forced to retire before the large guns of the enemy. They all reached the ground in safety. The tremendous explosion that was heard in the city is thought to have been caused by the exploding of one of the large magazines.’”
“What’s that from?” Lawrence glanced up from his “anything and eggs.” “Die Fliegende Blatter?”
But Edestone did not smile, he was glancing at another of the slips.
“Ah,” he said in a sad voice, “I seem to have killed about one thousand people last night.”
“Still,” argued Lawrence, “that was not as large a percentage of the German Empire as they killed of your little kingdom.”
“No,” granted Edestone; “and as long as they insist upon treating me as an outlaw I will be one so far as they are concerned. I will now go and see if my ultimatum is prepared. I am undecided as to whether I will send it by wireless or by a messenger.”
Lawrence finished his breakfast and while he sat in the loggia smoking his cigar and looking down over the city, he decided to ask permission to carry the message to the Emperor himself. The idea delighted him, and he pictured exactly how he would walk and speak his lines like the prince in the story book. He only regretted that he was not to be dressed up in spangles, like the heralds of old, and have the triumphal march from Aïda played by trumpeters from the Metropolitan Opera House who would precede him in their brand-new Cammeyer sandals and badly fitting tights but he decided that if said trumpeters were obliged to read sheet music he would not allow them to wear glasses. He was just making up his mind what he would say to the Emperor when Wilhelm fell on his knees and begged him to intercede for him, as Edestone came in, and blasted all these glowing dreams with a word.
“Well, it is done,” he said, “and I have given them until one o’clock to answer.”
Lawrence was then formally introduced to “Specs” under his title of Admiral Page, to Captain Lee, and the officers, and he spent one of the most delightful days of his life, so much interested in what he saw that he entirely forgot that he was a pirate, waiting to destroy a peaceable city if it did not do his bidding.
Edestone had settled himself down for a quiet day of waiting, and Lawrence amused himself by inspecting every part of the ship and talking with all on board from the oil men to the Admiral.
“Admiral Page,” he inquired, “where do you keep the Deionizer?”
At which “Specs” peeped at him with a suspicious glance through his thick glasses. “Has Mr. Edestone spoken to you of that?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Lawrence, “but he did not explain to me its working.”
“Specs” hesitated to take even Lawrence into the holy of holies until he had obtained permission from Edestone to do so. Having by telephone communicated with him, and receiving his permission, he conducted Lawrence up into the bow of the ship. After passing through several heavy doors, which “Specs” unlocked, saluting the sentries at each, they came to a great iron grille and he motioned to Lawrence to look through, saying, “This is as far as I can take you.”
Lawrence looked through, and he saw what appeared to be the door of an enormous safe-deposit k vault. “That,” nodded “Specs,” “is the door to the safe in which the Deionizer is kept. No one on earth excepting Mr. Edestone knows the combination that will open those doors. That is run by a one hundred H. P. motor in the engine room, and from it run the deionizing cables which run down the port and starboard sides of the vessel.”
“Do you mean to say,” said Lawrence, “that I have no weight?” as he felt his large biceps with an expression of pride.
This caused “Specs” to laugh, and in response to the numberless questions put to him by the young man, he explained the different mechanisms by which the weight of the ship and its contents was kept at the weight of the amount of air displaced by it.
“So,” said Lawrence, “we are floating not by virtue of gas bags filled with gas lighter than air, but by the amount of air displaced by all metallic substances on this vessel, which for all practical purposes are rendered lighter than air?”
“Yes,” replied “Specs,” with a look of pity for the other man’s ignorance, “I suppose that is the way you would express it. If you really want to understand, and are willing to give the time to it, come to my quarters, and I will give you the scientific explanation.”
“No, thank you,” said Lawrence; “I’ll take your word for it, but I am glad to know that when I get back to earth I’m not liable at any time to be blown away like a thistledown.”
At lunch Edestone appeared very thoughtful and seemed to feel great anxiety about the outcome of his note. They had observed that soon after the message had been sent automobiles were coming and going from the Palace in great numbers, and gathered that the Emperor apparently was holding a council of war. They had also seen with powerful glasses that, in certain parts of the city there was great activity of some kind, but they were unable to ascertain exactly what it was.
“I cannot understand,” frowned Edestone, “how they can possibly decline a proposition pour parler. I asked them to agree to nothing. I assured them that I would use my influence in favour of a just settlement of all the claims arising out of the war and of the incidents leading up to it. I appealed to their humanity, and guaranteed as far as lay within my power to protect the lives and property of Germans all over the world if they would only stop all actual fighting until I could make an exactly similar appeal to the other Governments that are involved.”
Just then an officer came in and handed Edestone a wireless message which had just been received.
Edestone read it hurriedly, but as he glanced up it was easy to see from the expression on his face that he was pleased.
“Well,” he exclaimed elatedly, “these Germans are not so bad after all, and if they will only give up the idea that they are the only people on the face of the earth, the sooner will they get what they want. That is, if they are telling the truth when they state they are fighting only to bring religion, science, and culture to the entire world. They do sincerely and honestly believe, I think, that this can be obtained only under the German form of government, and many of the other nations would be willing to admit this in part were they absolutely convinced of their sincerity and did not suspect them of greed on the part of the merchant class and ambition on the part of the war party.
“They have apparently received my note in the spirit in which it was sent,” he explained, “and have agreed to consider carefully the proposition which I have made. They only ask to be given until five o’clock this afternoon to draw up in proper form their reply to me and their message to the other countries. I am expecting every minute now to see a white flag displayed somewhere on or around the Palace, which was the signal agreed upon and is to be acknowledged by a similar flag displayed by me. This is not to be considered as an indication of any weakness on their part, or any surrendering of their rights or the acknowledgment of my power, but as a truce which will last only until five o’clock, or until such earlier time as I shall answer them. They stipulate that I, as an indication of good faith, withdraw to some point outside of the city, where it will be well out of range of my largest guns, and in order to fix some location which will be perfectly satisfactory they have suggested that I lie over the Gotzen See and have established my exact position by the ruins of an old castle on its north-eastern bank. There I am to remain until I receive their answer, which if not satisfactory terminates the truce. They have indicated very justly that they do not think they should be called upon to open negotiations for an amicable settlement with me while the Little Peace Maker is lying so close to the Emperor’s Palace and threatening it with instant destruction.”
As it was impossible for them from where they were to see the Palace, Edestone suggested that they go up on the upper deck.
“I hope that by the time we arrive on deck,” Edestone said as they hurried along, “the white flag will be flying, and I sincerely hope that this will mark the beginning of the end of this cruel war and the realization of my hopes, the accomplishment of my life’s work.
“Ah,” he exclaimed as they arrived and looked down, “there she is! You can see it on the large flagpole out in front of the Palace, while the Imperial standard is still floating over His Majesty’s residence.” He called an officer to him and gave him his orders:
“Dip my colours and then run them up to the peak again. Display a white flag. Tell Captain Lee to call all hands, and get under way at once. Drop to within four hundred feet, man the rail, and circle the Palace. Haul down my colours and run up the German Imperial Ensign and fire a national salute of twenty-one guns, and then run at top speed and take a position over the Gotzen See at a point which I shall indicate.”
The ceremony was executed faultlessly, as he directed, and when the Little Peace Maker, just skirting the tops of the buildings, cast the shadow of its nine hundred feet of steel as it came between the sun and the Imperial city, its big guns booming the national salute, the people of Berlin must have been impressed, for when she circled at about four knots they cheered. But when she changed her speed, and at one hundred and eighty knots disappeared from sight, they must have been relieved.
At such speed it was only a few minutes before they were hovering quietly over the old ruin on the banks of the lake, and they settled down to spend the afternoon as they would have, had they been anchored in Frenchman’s Bay off of Bar Harbour in the month of August on board the Storm Queen.
It was a beautiful and quiet summer scene, and like a big trout in a limpid pool the Little Peace Maker lay perfectly still basking in the warm sunshine. Most of the ports were open and the men were lying around enjoying the relaxation of the first dog-watch.
Although it was with difficulty that Edestone could keep Lawrence still long enough, he forced him to join in a game of chess, which was Edestone’s favourite form of relaxation. Lawrence, however, kept continually breaking in with the suggestion that they go below and take a walk among the ruins of the home of one of the ancient Barons of Prussia.
From time to time, while waiting for Lawrence to move, Edestone would consult his watch, and as the fatal hour of five approached, although perfectly calm he was anxious.
With the finish of the game, Lawrence, who had chafed under the confinement, insisted upon going on deck and talking with the officers and men.
When next he saw his friend, Edestone was walking up and down the general living-room with an expression of great anxiety on his face. It was half-past five o’clock, and although Lawrence had entirely forgotten it, he suddenly thought of the ultimatum.
“Well what did they answer?” he asked.
“Nothing,” said Edestone.
“And what are you going to do?”
“I am going to Kiel to sink one of their largest battleships, and see if that will wake them up. We shall be under way in ten minutes and should be there by eight-thirty o’clock. I have ordered ‘Specs’ to get under way as soon as possible.”
Lawrence was delighted; this was the best yachting that he had ever had, and he wanted to be in so many places at the same time that he ran about like a boy on his first ocean trip. He was just going up the companionway to the pilot house, where he knew he would find Edestone, when he was almost knocked off his feet by the impact of something against the side of the ship which felt as if it would tear out every rivet and buckle every beam. At the same instant there was an explosion which was worse than the black-powder explosion of the night before, and he was just thinking how unkind it was of Edestone not to have warned him before indulging in another one of his pyrotechnical demonstrations, when it was followed by another and another.
He had managed by this time to get into the pilot house, where he saw Edestone with an expression of rage on his face giving sharp peremptory orders while the life was being pounded out of the Little Peace Maker. In response to these orders, the ship suddenly shot up with such rapidity that it seemed to Lawrence as if his legs would be driven through the floor.
He was suffering great pain in his head and his nose was bleeding. He could scarcely hear what Edestone was saying to him, but finally he caught these words:
“So that is their answer, the liars! They have taken advantage of my willingness to remain here quietly, and with their thoroughness in all matters and their usual method of working in the dark, they have placed me where they have carefully worked out the range of their forty-two-centimetre guns. They hoped to be able to capture us, but seeing our smoke, and realizing that I was going to move, they took this unspeakable method of putting an end to the Little Peace Maker.”