Part 23

He put the question so bluntly that P. C. Breagh, in the effort to answer, floundered and boggled. He had suddenly realized his own insect-like insignificance in the eyes that were so intolerably heavy in their regard. His own eyes sank to the neat, small, polished boots of the big man. who stood smoking upon the white lioness-skin. To the wearer of those boots he was merely a beetle who could be crushed by them. The slight ironical smile that altered the curve of the mustache said as much. But the Minister's tone was suave as he went on:

"I think I have grasped the mainspring of your reasoning. To begin with, you desire to accompany one of our armies on the campaign?"

"Yes--sir! Your Excellency, I should say!"

A lambent light of humor danced in the blue eyes that were bent on him. The faint ironic smile broadened into a laugh. The Chancellor took his cigar from his mouth, knocked off the ash, and said quite pleasantly:

"And deducting from this premise, I conjecture that--because I have been privileged to save you from being trampled to death under the feet of the mob upon the Linden, you naturally take it for granted that I would further your ambitions. Gratitude, one of your English authors has admirably defined as a lively sense of favors to come...."

P. C. Breagh, who had been for some time shrinking in his own estimation, suddenly saw himself in a newer, meaner light. His torturer went on in mellifluous English:

"I do not know that any classical German author has defined gratitude quite so cleverly. But we in Pomerania have a folk-story which may be new to you." He drew sharply at his cigar, then laid it glowing on the edge of the stove:

"You speak German quite passably, so I will tell it in our Pomeranian dialect. If this is not done, the dialogue lacks salt. Thus it goes: Wedig Knips, a peasant of Dalow, whose horses wanted watering, went one winter's day to break the ice that covered the drinking-hole.... 'Bless us! what have we here?' says he, when he finds a kerl called Peders, frozen in the ice, with his head down and his heels up. To make a long story short, he chops out Peders, takes him home, and sets him up to thaw before the fire.... 'Now, neighbor,' says he, 'go about your business!'--'How can I when my jerkin is wet and my breeches are full of muddy water?'--Says Wedig: 'Poor devil! I will give you my Sunday trows!'--'And a jerkin too, for you saved my life, you must remember!' ... Wedig scratches his head, but hands over a jerkin with the rest. 'Come, now be off!' says he. '"Off," with my under-pants and shirt all sopping! Do you want to kill me--now that you have saved my life?'--So Wedig pulls a wry face, but hands over the underclothes.... 'Put these on and be off, we are busy people in this house!' 'What,' says Peders, 'without paying me the value of the good duds spoiled in your stinking horsepond?'--'Must I pay?' ... 'Certainly, you have saved my life! Nobody asked you!--I had thrown myself in because I was tired of living. Now it is your bounden duty to make things tolerable for me!'--'How make things tolerable?'--'To begin with, I want a cottage to live in, and a plot of kail-ground to it, and a wee pickle furniture.'--'But I have only this cottage, and the bits of sticks you see!'--'Well, give me them! Didn't you save my life?' ... Wedig gets confused, sees no way out of it. 'The devil!' says he, 'this is a nice affair! However, take them, man!'--'I will take them,' says Peders, 'but you must give me the cart and plow, the cow and the two horses?'--'_Himmelkreuzbombenelement_! Have I got to give you all that because I saved your life?'--'Ay, undoubtedly!--and you must let me have your wife into the bargain. It's your bounden duty----' 'I know! because I saved your life! Shan't make such a mistake next time, you may be sure of that!'--'No, but you did, so to grumble is no use.'--'Thunder! my old girl will make a terrible squawking.'--'Not when you have explained how you saved my life!' ... Wedig scratches his head, rubs his chin, gets a bright idea.... 'Help me to explain to the wife, do you agree?'--'Ay, of course! What is it you want me to say to her?'--'Oh! say nothing. Only let me show her exactly how I got you out of the water-hole.'--'Willingly!'--'But to do that I must put you back just a minute!'--'Put me back?'--'Only for a minute.' 'Promise when I cry "_Genug!_" you'll take me out directly!'--'All right! Come along!' So Wedig takes Peders by the legs and sticks him back where he found him, driving his head well down into the mud at the bottom of the pond.... So--he never cried '_Genug!_' and Wedig left him there....

The hard blue eyes that had been all alight with laughter, the heavily molded face that had unexpectedly proved itself capable of comic changes, the voice that, as the droll dialogue proceeded, had conveyed with slight, admirably restrained mimicry the complacent assurance of the knave and the dull bewilderment of the victim, changed, became the Minister's again. He said, in his smoothest tones:

"I cannot put you back into the crush of the crowd, because by an appeal to its loyal feelings and domestic instincts I was so fortunate as to disperse it. What I might do, of course, is to deliver you to the tender mercies of my servants, to whom,--when you brought back the medal,--you blustered about delivering it to me personally. This not-exactly-very-clever ruse would have failed--had I not happened to step upon the scene. Your English policy is often more fortunate than masterly.... Fortune certainly has favored you to-day. Not in the fulfillment of your ambition to accompany a Prussian Army to the field of action--that is a wish impossible to gratify. For we put up a general defense against the presence of any save the most highly accredited Correspondents, and the War Minister will only grant Legitimations to two or three. But in obtaining for an obscure paragraphist a special interview with the Prussian Minister for Foreign Affairs on the eve of a world-crisis, Fortune has certainly favored you. Go back now to your hotel and write your article; then telegraph to Fleet Street and make your own terms!"

"I'll be shot if I do!" choked out P. C. Breagh, flaming scarlet to his hair-roots. "And I thank Your Excellency for a lesson, and I beg to take my leave!"

"Why does he go? Why does he talk about a lesson?" asked the broad, cynical gaze that rested on him.

As though he had spoken aloud, P. C. Breagh answered:

"Because I set my personal advantage above common gratitude and honor. Your Excellency lost the medal in pulling me out of the scrimmage at the risk of your own life, and when I found the thing--I used it,--exactly as you say! True, you'd snubbed me when I'd tried to thank you! yet I did believe your having saved me might help me in some way.... But it would be better to cadge in the dustbins for a living, than make money out of information gained by trickery. And I apologize sincerely for having been such a cad!"

"'Cad' is the slang for vulgarian, is it not?" He added: "Yes, they inculcate a code of honor at the English public schools."

The voice grated. P. C. Breagh hated its owner. But he answered, looking squarely in the bulldog face that bent on him:

"They do, and I am sorry to have broken at least one of its articles. May I wish Your Excellency good afternoon!"

The speaker bowed, not clumsily, and turned to quit the room, when a ferocious growl behind him, and the scraping of heavy claws on slippery parquet pulled round his head. Savage, red-rimmed eyes challenged, and the bared gleaming fangs of a huge boarhound couched at length under a wrought-iron sofa at the west end of the longish room menaced the stranger's throat:

"Down, Tyras!" ordered the Minister harshly, and with a deep groan the heavy brute dropped its nose between its forepaws, and lay still, shaken by occasional rumbling growls.

"You see," said the Minister, laughing, "that I can afford to dispense with the services of detectives when this good servant is at hand. Come, sit down another moment.... I am really willing to help you.... You have not come so badly as you imagine out of the affair!"

"But I have said I will not write the article, and I am intruding on Your Excellency's privacy." The soul of P. C. Breagh yearned for the freedom of the streets. To be shut up in the study of the greatest of living Ministers,--set beak-to-beak with the man who was occupying the attention of Europe--the master-mind in statecraft, who used blunt truth as a weapon to beat down diplomatic falsehood, and comported himself amidst the striving parties of his national Parliament as a giant surrounded by dwarfs;--had seemed, previously, a thing to boast of--a dazzling feather in the cap of achievement. Now it was no triumph, but a torture. He writhed under those keen, amused, analytical glances, knowing himself worthy to be so despised.

"I have twenty minutes in which to refresh and rest, not having eaten or sat down since ten o'clock this morning. You have had ten--I will give you another five. Sit down again there!"

Tyras emitted another savage growl as though in support of his owner's authority, and P. C. Breagh, loathing his host even more intensely than he hated P. C. Breagh, obeyed the imperious hand that pointed to the chair he had vacated, and sat down, white-gilled now, and sick with longing to be out of this presence into which he had thrust himself--beyond the reach of the icy, contemptuous tones and the arrogant, domineering eyes.

The Chancellor had turned away to pull at one of the red woolen bell-ropes that hung on either side of the fire-place, shabby things, threadbare with use, like the Persian carpet that was trodden out in paths by the spurred feet of the man who stood for Prussia; worn like the leather cushions of the great wrought-iron sofa, under which the great man's faithful attendant couched, with one eye on the familiar face, and the other on the strange one that might mask an enemy.

Above the sofa, beneath a trophy of fencing-swords and masks, reigning over a rack supporting a number of red and white military undress-caps in all stages of wear, and another containing a collection of pipe-sticks and unmounted pipe-heads, hung the half-length oil-portrait of a beautiful girl in ball-dress. Below was a large-framed photograph of a noble-looking woman, with a mass of black braided hair framing a long, serious face, with grave dark eyes, thick straight nose, and full-curved, humorous lips recalling published engravings of the English author of "Adam Bede." Probably it was the Countess--that same Fräulein Johanna Puttkammer who had been hugged under the gaze of her assembled family. She looked strong, serene and courageous, fit--thought P. C. Breagh--to be the wife of a man destined by Fate and framed by nature to become a leader of men. Also, she looked like a woman who could love with old-world, elemental, forceful passion. She had bestowed such love upon this man--who had begun life as a roaring, hard-drinking young Pomeranian squire, well worthy of the sobriquet of "Mad Bismarck," bestowed upon him by his native county.

She had sifted the gold out of the sand.... She had never openly displayed her influence.... All the same it had been there, guiding, sustaining, controlling.... He had written to her, years after, when he had begun in earnest to be a power in politics.... "_You see what you have made me! What should I have done without you?_"

Arrogant, harsh, domineering, merciless, as his enemies had reason to term him, there must be something noble in the man who had written like that. He was said to be a kind, if not over-indulgent, father to his two big sons, even then serving as private soldiers in a well-known regiment of Dragoon Guards, and to be worshiped by his daughter, a feminine copy of himself, if that oil-portrait were anything like....

"Have you taken any food to-day?..."

The interrogation brought P. C. Breagh's head round. A servant must have appeared, and gone, and come again in answer to the bell-summons. For on a clear corner of an étagère otherwise piled with official papers and pamphlets, stood a tray, bearing glasses and a vast crystal jug of creaming golden-hued nectar with miniature icebergs floating on the surface; and several dishes of rolls, split, profusely buttered, and lined with something savory, the sight and scent of which awoke tender yearnings within....

"No!--I thought not. Drink this and eat some of these sandwiches. I myself have fasted longer than is agreeable!"

And a huge goblet of the ice-cold creaming nectar was handed to P. C. Breagh, who immediately realized that his tongue and palate were dry as the sun-baked asphalt of the Linden.

"_Prosit!_" said his host, and drained his glass, adding, as the guest duly responded according to the classic formula and drank: "You are University-bred, I see! What Alma Mater had the preference? Schwärz-Brettingen! ... Ah, they thought very badly of me there about the time of the Luxembourg Garrison Question. Nearly all the little foxes barked at me as I passed through. However, we are now reconciled, and more than a thousand of the students have applied to serve as volunteers in this war,--there's an item of interest for your paper!--though you have Quixotically determined, you say, not to make use of any information that I may be enabled to offer you. All Quixotism is weakness, in my estimation; a man, according to my code, should pursue his advantage where he finds it irrespective of ethical laws or religious prejudice. Now eat some of these stuffed rolls. Here are caviar, smoked goose-breast, Westphalian ham and liver-sausage. You see I set you an example!--and a would-be campaigner should be able to sleep soundly under any and all conditions; and eat whenever anything eatable is obtainable, with unflinching appetite!"

The savory rolls were vanishing under the speaker's repeated attacks, and the golden tide in the great crystal decanter was sinking visibly. He said, lifting and holding it so that between the light of the green-shaded table-lamp and the red glow of sunset pouring through the unblinded western windows, the liquid in it shone ruby and emerald....

"Come, let me fill your glass again, and then I shall send you about your business. Absolved, you understand, from that ridiculous vow of yours--and with a magic talisman to enable you to use your eyes."

The steady hand set down the now emptied jug, and took from the red marble mantelshelf a small and perfectly-finished pair of field-glasses, covered in black Russia leather and mounted in ivory. An inlaid silver shield bore a monogram, "O. v. B.-S.," and a date.

"You can shoot with a pistol?--Good!--then I should advise you to buy one, if possible. A revolver of the American Colt's invention--six-barreled--a feature which increases weight in proportion as it adds to effectiveness--would be useful. Indeed, I carry one myself! One day they will turn out such things with one barrel--but we must wait for that, I am afraid. Here is the case belonging to the glasses, with a strap to sling it round your shoulders--and one thing more I will give you--though I am less certain about its ultimate usefulness!"

The writing-table stood in the middle of the room. He moved to it with one of his long, heavy strides, sat down--dipped quill in ink--and penned a few lines rapidly, glancing at the sunburned, freckled face as though to refresh his memory--holding up an imperious baud for silence when the recipient of the field-glasses seemed about to protest against the value of the gift.

"Your nationality?--'British.' Name, 'Patrick Carolan Breagh--pronounced "Brack." Your height?--Be very accurate. One half-inch too much or too little might bring you into trouble of a serious kind. 'Five feet nine' ... you promise to be taller. Your age ... twenty-three last January.... Shoulders broad, good muscular development. Your hair ... Reddish, is it not? ... You have gray eyes with what the French would call _taches_ of yellow in them. Complexion fresh, considerably freckled. Nose short and straight, ears small, teeth white and regular. Chin square and with a cleft--weaklings have not such chins!..."

He added a brief sentence to the hastily scrawled description, signed and blotted it, rose and came to P. C. Breagh and thrust it in his hand.

"Do not thank me! It is my passing whim to help you--regard it in that light. As to this pass, safe-conduct or whatever one may call it--it may forward you or hinder you.... _Potztausend_! I am a mere officer of Cuirassiers of the _Landwehr_--General by courtesy--not Generalissimo! ... You, Bucher! ... What is there wanted now?..."

For a scratch on the door-panel had been succeeded by the flurried entrance of the little Councillor of Legation, breathing hard, and red in the face. He gabbled in Spanish:

"Pardon, Your Excellency, that I enter without knocking. But His Highness the Crown Prince is coming upstairs!..."

And almost in the same instant, as Tyras uttered a deep "wuff" of friendly greeting, the open doorway was filled by the stateliest and most martial figure in Europe, and a pleasant, manly voice said:

"Not finding you in your official quarters below-stairs, I ventured, my dear Count Bismarck, to follow you to your private study. It is a question of whether Le Sourd delivered the war-gauntlet from Paris, or---- Pardon! I had no idea that you were not alone!"

The tall, broad-chested, golden-bearded Viking in the undress uniform of the First Regiment of Guards touched his cap in acknowledgment of P. C. Breagh's respectful salutation. Then, as in obedience to a glance from the Minister, the lean claws of the little Councillor closed upon P. C. Breagh's arm, and he was plucked from the room, the Prince asked, glancing after the queer couple:

"May one ask who your young friend is?" and got answer:

"It is only an English schoolboy, Your Royal Highness,--who thirsts to try his hand at War-correspondence--having had a few articles printed in some London rag. And this being so, he applies to me, who am the least leisured person in His Majesty's dominions---for a moment of my spare time!..."

"It is annoying, my dear Count," answered the mellow-voiced Viking, "but cannot your people keep such troublesome persons outside?"

The Minister returned, laughing:

"He caught me on my doorstep,--as the polecat waylaid the badger!--and as he brought back a decoration I had lost, and which he, luckily for himself, had found!--I could not refuse him a minute's interview. But with regard to Your Royal Highness's question of an instant since--Le Sourd, the French Chargé d'Affaires, placed the Emperor's declaration of war in my hands about an hour after the opening of Council in the Palace to-day."

Said the Prince:

"Unhappy man! driven to risk the loss of an Empire that he may continue to rule a nation of enemies. One can hardly doubt the issue--yet at what cost of lives shall we not purchase victory!"

Bismarck said in harsh, metallic tones, bending his brows upon the Prince, who all the world knew loved peace, and loathed the thought of the red months of strife that were approaching:

"Your Royal Highness is aware that I look upon this war as necessary, and that I should not have returned to Varzin without giving in my resignation to His Majesty had the issue been other than what it is.... As for this weak-backed Napoleon, this Pierrot stuffed with bran,--who is kept in an upright attitude only by the slaps I deal him on one cheek and the buffets the Monarchists and the Revolutionists lend him on the other!--it will be better for him to meet his end by a bullet or a sword-thrust on the banks of the Rhine, than to be blown to pieces by some bomb in the streets of Paris, or to die of apoplexy in the bedroom of some nymph of the theater-coulisses!"

He drew himself to his full height and, folding his powerful arms upon his breast, said, looking full at the Prince, who had declined a seat and who was standing near the window, his hair and beard glowing golden-red in the full rays of the setting sun:

"Your Royal Highness speaks of the effusion of blood. I am of those who have drawn the sword in the service of their King and country. I do not regard war from the point of view of the man who stops at home. More than this! ... His Majesty is not the only father who has a son serving in our Army.... I have two. Herbert and Bill...."

A pale purplish tint suffused his heavy face and crept to the summit of his rugged forehead. His fierce blue eyes dimmed. He said, in slightly muffled tones:

"I am not given to pompous phrases. Yet if German unity can only be brought about by a great national war waged against our near-hand enemy--our old, cunning, sleepless foe--I hail that war, even though it leave me without posterity! If the gulf that divides the Northern and Southern sections of the Fatherland can be better bridged by my boys' dead bodies ... I would give them as freely as I would give my own!"

A spasm twisted his under-jaw. He said, laughing in his stern way:

"Three long-legged Bismarcks should equal one eighteen-foot-seven plank. And I speak not only for myself. My wife would echo me."

Said the Prince in his cordial way:

"My mother has a great admiration for Her Excellency. My wife, too, speaks of her as a woman of antique nobility of mind." He continued, with a smile that curved the bold, frank mouth under the glittering mustache into lines of exceeding pleasantness: "And her personal solicitude for Your Excellency pleases my father much!"

The heavy face that opposed him lost its dogged, set expression. The Minister broke into a hearty laugh.

"So! I have been waiting to hear somewhat of that voluble telegram of hers to Abeken: '_Pray ask the King not to bother Count Bismarck about State matters just now, when he is taking Carlsbad waters for the gout!_'

"Ha, ha!" The Prince joined gaily in the laughter. "The Councillor was working with the King and myself, when he received that wire. It came with a sheaf of others--he read it aloud without a change of expression..... Then you should have seen his face ... a study for a comedian...."

The Minister said, still smiling:

"My wife pours many confidences of the domestic sort into Abeken's bosom. She said to him during the Constitutional Conflict of '66 ... 'Bismarck cares really nothing at all about these stupid political matters. A cabbage well grown, or a fir-tree well planted, means more to him than the Indemnity Bill.' Yet when the Bill passed she was all-triumphant. And to-day she remarked to me: 'War is horrible to me on principle. But it would be equally horrible to me if you said to me to-morrow: "_All is over!--we do not fight!..._"' I made her angry by telling her that one might parody in application to the mental attitude of her sex the lines of the English Poet Laureate, and say:

"Her reason rooted in unreason stood."