THE SWARTZ DIAMONDThe Boer puzzled us. It was not because he loomed so big in the haze against the sunset; but he seemed at a mile's distance to detect us. We thought the cover perfect, for the hackthorn tops were higher than our horses' heads. If he from so far could see patches of khaki through bushes, his eyes must be better than our fieldglasses. If he did not see us, why did he wave his hat as in salutation?"Maybe he only suspect one patrol at de ford. Vat you t'ink, Sergeant McTavish?" said Lieutenant Deschamps to me."Perhaps he thinks some of his own kind may hold the ford," I suggested.The others said nothing. They were fifteen French Canadians, including Corporal Jongers. We lay still behind our prone horses, and kept our Krags on the Boer.He seemed to diminish as he advanced slowly from the mirage, but still he looked uncommonly big—and venerable, too. His hair and beard grew long and white, though he sat up as alert as any young man. At ten yards a pack-pony followed him. When half a mile away the burgher raised both hands above his head."He come for surrender, you t'ink, sergeant?" Lieutenant Deschamps is a gentleman. Because I was of another race he always treated me with more than the consideration due to a good non-com. Or possibly it was because he knew I had been advocate in Montreal before joining the mounted Canadian contingent."Better keep down and keep him covered," I replied. "That may be a signal." I stared about the horizon. The veldt was bare, except for the straggle of hackthorns fringing the curve about the ford. There could be no other Boer within three miles of us, unless hidden by the meanderings of the Wolwe, which runs twelve feet below the plain. But we had searched ten miles of its bed during the day. Westward lay the kopjes from among which the old Boer had apparently ridden.He came calmly down the breach of the opposite bank and as far as the middle of the brawling shallow within fifty yards of us before Deschamps cried "Halt!" At the word we sprang up, accoutrements rattling, horses snorting. The old burgher looked up at us quizzically, passing his hand down his beard and gathering its length above his mouth before he spoke."Take care some of those guns don't go off," he said, with no trace of Dutch accent."You surrender?" Deschamps stepped forward."Sir, I am going to Swartzdorp. Did you not see me hold up my hands?""But for sure you could not see us here?"He smiled and pointed up to the sky. In the blue a vulture swung wide above us. "So I knew," said the burgher, "Khakis were hiding. Boers would have come out. They would have recognized me.""Your name?""Emanuel Swartz.""Bon! The great landowner! I have much pleasure to see you. Come in, monsieur. Eef only you brought in your commando, how glad!""They may come yet," he said. "It depends." He shook his rein, and the big bay brought him up the breach into the midst of us. The pack-pony, which had imitated his halt, followed."You will not stop me. I have private business at Swartzdorp," he said."Truly I regret," said Deschamps. "But my orders! Here you must stay, monsieur, this night. To-morrow General Pole. He will be most glad to parole you, I have hope.""Oh, very well, lieutenant," said Swartz, philosophically. "I dare say he won't send me to St. Helena." He dismounted, leaving his Mauser strapped to his saddle. Then he handed me his bandoleer. "I make you welcome to my pack also," he said hospitably. "There's some biltong and meal. Perhaps it will improve your fare.""It will be poor stuff if it doesn't," I told him."You give your parole, sir?" asked Deschamps."For the night, yes. I will not try to escape."His cordial, easy accents came with a certain surprising effect from one who was so unkempt and, in spite of his years, so formidable. I had never before seen one of the great Boer land-owners. In his manner one could perceive, if not a certain condescension, at least the elevated kindness of a patriarchal gentleman accustomed to warm by affability the hearts of many descendants and dependents. About Swartzdorp we had heard much of his English mother, his English wife, and his lifelong friendship with English officers and gentlemen. It did not seem surprising that he should have come in voluntarily now that Bloemfontein and Pretoria were in Lord Roberts's hands.It was cold for us in khaki that evening by the Wolwe, though we did not lack overcoats. The spruit tinkled icily along patches of gravel in the blue clay, and late June's high moon seemed pouring down a Canadian wintriness. "No fire," ordered Deschamps, lest far-sighted Boer parties, skilled in surprises, might locate us. But the old burgher showed how to make small glowing heaps of dry offal, which had been plentifully left of old by troops of deer and antelope coming to drink at the spruit. Over one of these tiny smokeless fires our lieutenant sat with the prisoner. I think I see again the reflection of the little flame flickering on the old giant's enormous beard and shapely outspread hands.We had supped heavily on his meat and meal, but sleep in that nipping air came by dozes only, and drowsiness departed when digestion had relieved repletion. At midnight, when the vedettes were changed and the moon sagged low, we all were more wakeful than early in the evening. There had been little talk, and that in the low voices of endurance; but now Deschamps and Swartz fell into discourse about the Kimberley mines. This led to discussing the greater diamonds of South Africa, and so on till the burgher began a story stranger than fiction:"One of the biggest stones ever taken from blue clay is still uncut. It has never been offered for sale. Near this very place it was found by Vassell Swartz, my cousin. The man is not rich even for a Free State burgher. He is fond of money. He believes his diamond to be worth twelve thousand pounds. No man could wish harder to sell anything. And yet he has not offered it. He has not even shown it. His wife has not seen it. He has had it constantly near him for eleven years. He has handled it frequently—in its setting. But he has not ventured to look at it since the morning after he found it. You wonder at that. Is it possible a rough diamond can shine so bright as dangerously to dazzle the eyes? No; Vassell would be glad to stare at it all day. But its setting prevents him. And yet he set it himself."The old burgher paused and looked about on our puzzled faces with some air of satisfaction at their interest."It is quite a riddle," said Deschamps."So it is. And I will make it harder. You have been told that we Boers think nothing of killing Kaffirs? But all Swartzdorp could tell you that my cousin Vassell could scarcely bear to let a Kaffir out of his sight. That is mysterious? Well, I will not go on talking in parables. I will tell you the thing just as I heard it from Vassell or know about it myself."Eleven years ago, Vassell and his brother, my cousin Claas, went off as usual to Makori's country beyond the Limpopo, elephant-hunting. Ivory was so plenty that they trekked back a month earlier than they had expected. On the return Vassell's riding-horse fell lame not long after crossing this very Wolwe spruit by a higher ford. My cousin gave the beast no rest till evening, and no attention until after they had made a laager against lions and had eaten supper. Then he took a brand from the fire and looked into the hoof. In it he found a whitish stone of about the bigness of an elephant-bullet of six to the pound. It was of the colour of alum, and in the torchlight it glistened as the scale of a fish."Vassell had never seen a rough diamond. And he had heard of diamonds as brighter than glittering glass. He thought only that the pebble was a pretty stone. The man's heart was soft with nearing his wife and children, so he slipped the pebble into his empty elephant-bullet pouch, thinking to give it for a toy to his little Anna. There it lay forgotten until his fingers went groping for a bullet at the next daybreak. Kaffirs were then trying to rush my cousins' laager."Wild Kaffirs these were, driven from Kimberley for unruliness in drink. They were going back to their tribe; they had come far without food, and they smelled the meat and meal in the wagons—so Matakit afterward told. But no hunger could have driven them against a Boer laager. They mistook the wagons for the wagons of Englishmen."The French Canadians smiled unoffended, but my jaws snapped. Swartz turned to me courteously:"They mistook the wagons for those of English traders unskilled in arms and trekking provisions to the mines. Though their first rush showed them their mistake, they went mad over their losses and came on twice more. Then they guessed, from the way my cousins reserved their fire, that their ammunition was low. So Matakit howled them on for a fourth rush."My cousins and their six Christian Kaffirs were now in alarm, for their cartridges were nearly all gone. It was then that Vassell's fingers groped in his elephant-bullet pouch, where he felt something rounding out the leather. That was the forgotten pebble. But its bigness was too great for the muzzle-loading elephant-rifle. So my cousin rammed it into the wide-mouthed, old-fashioned roer, a blunderbuss that our fathers' fathers praised because it frightened Kaffirs more than it hurt them. In justice to the roer it should have been loaded with a handful of slugs. But with only powder and the pebble it made such flash and noise that all the living wild blacks, but one, ran away howling. The one that fell before Vassell's pebble was the biggest of all, and their leader. There he lay kicking and bellowing like a buffalo bull, ten yards from the wagons."'While he bawled we knelt in the laager,' Vassell told me, 'and we offered up thanks for this our deliverance, even like unto the deliverance of David by the pebble of the brook.'"Then they ate breakfast while their Kaffirs inspanned, and still the wild one roared."'It would be merciful, brother Vassell,' said Claas as they drank coffee, 'to put the Lord's creature out of his pain.'"'Nay,' said Vassell; 'my conscience will not consent to what Free State law might call murder. And, moreover, the Kaffir's pain is a plain judgment of the Almighty.' Vassell is a dopper, like Oom Paul, and a dopper is quick to see the Almighty operating through himself. So they left the black thief gnashing, with five more who lay still, meat for vultures' beaks or lions' jaws."In four or five hours' time my cousins were nigh to Truter's drift on the Modder. There they saw two Englishmen and one Israelite digging into the blue-clay shoal."'Good day,' shouts Claas. 'What are you digging for?'"'Diamonds, Dutchman, d—n you,' said the Englishmen, laughing."They came up out of the river-bed and showed my cousins four small rough stones which they had found elsewhere."Vassell looked closely at the stones. Then he knew that his pebble had been a great gem. He put innocent, simple dopper questions about the value of diamonds. And the Israelite said that a first-rate stone of the bigness of more than an elephant-bullet would be worth from twelve to twenty thousand pounds. Vassell felt that Israelite's eyes piercing him, and so he gave no more sign of excitement than a skull. But he was wondering if the grandfathers' old roer had sent the pebble through the Kaffir, which seemed unlikely."My cousins traded the flesh of a springbok for cartridges, and the English went away up the spruit, while Claas got ready to cross at Truter's. But Vassell made delay; he said that hunger was rummaging his inside."'And that was the truth, Emanuel,' he told me later, 'for we had trekked since dawn. But it is not always needful to tell all the truth. Was I to arouse in Claas a greedy desire to share in the diamond? True,' said Vassell, 'we had agreed to share and share alike in the hunt, but the stone was not ivory, skin, nor meat, and I alone found it. We are commanded to agree with our adversary "in the way with him." And by halting in that place for the boiling of coffee there would be time to pray for direction. If the Almighty would have us trek back to the wounded Kaffir, it would be wise to turn before crossing at Truter's.'"Of course my cousin Claas, when he heard of Vassell's hunger, felt hungry too, and the Kaffirs were told to prepare the meal. Meantime Vassell took his Bible from the wagon-box and fell on his knees. He expected the Lord would order him back to the Wolwe, and so it happened. But to induce Claas to obey the Lord's direction without understanding the whole thing was the trouble."Like an inspiration a familiar text came to Vassell's mind. 'Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.' He showed this to Claas as his reason for turning about. The text had a new meaning for Vassell. I tell you again he felt that he had been inspired to remember it. You have to bear that in mind, or you will not rightly understand how his brain was afterward affected."'But it would be foolishness to apply the text to a wild Kaffir four hours' trek back,' said Claas."'Nay, not if the Kaffir be subdued,' said Vassell."'He is more than subdued; he is dead,' said Claas."'Nay, he may not yet have perished,' said Vassell. But he felt sure the black was dead. And he felt equally sure he had been inspired to understand that he himself should obtain mercy in the shape of the diamond if he returned even as the good Samaritan to the Kaffir fallen by the way. Still Claas was stiff-necked, until Vassell opened the Book at Jeremiah iii. 12: 'Return, ... for I am merciful, saith the Lord.' He handed it to Claas without a word."Claas naturally supposed that Vassell had opened the Bible at random, as the doppers often do when they are seeking direction. And hence Claas saw in this text a clear leading back to the Wolwe. Yet he wished to rest and smoke tobacco for a long hour after eating. But Vassell was greatly inspired with texts that day. He pointed to I Samuel xx. 38: 'Jonathan cried after the lad, Make speed, haste, stay not.' Then he fell into such a groaning and sighing about it that Claas could not smoke in peace."'Anything is better than your rumblings,' said Claas, and so they hastened on the backward course. 'For,' as Vassell told me, 'I was in deep tribulation of fear lest the vultures might gulp down the diamond, or some beak strike it afar.'"Here the huge old burgher sat up straighter and paused so unexpectedly that his sudden silence was startling. I imagined he listened to something far off in the stillness of the waning moon. Lieutenant Deschamps and the French Canadians sat indifferent, but I sprang up and put hands to my ears. Nothing could I hear but the occasional stamping of our horses, the walking hoofs of our vedettes by the river's bend, and the clinking of swift water over gravel."Did you hear something strange?" the patriarch asked me."Did you?" I asked."Is it likely that a great-grandfather's ears can hear better than a young man's?" he asked courteously."But you stopped to listen," I replied.Then he shamed me by saying gently: "An old voice may need a little rest. But now I will go on:"My cousins trekked back as fast as their oxen could walk. They found the Kaffir still squirming, and covering his eyes from the vultures. This went to Vassell's heart. He could not cut the diamond out of the living. And perhaps it was not in the man. Vassell drove away the vultures and examined the wound. Then his heart was lifted up exceedingly, for as he told me, 'fear had been heavy in me lest the diamond had gone clear through the Kaffir and been lost on the veldt. But now my fingers felt it under the flesh of his back. An inch more had sent it through. And it seemed so sure the pagan must die before morning that my conscience was clear against extracting the stone in haste.'"This Wolwe Veldt was then Lion Veldt, and Vassell thought it prudent to carry the Kaffir into the night-laager, for lions bolt big chunks, and the diamond might be in one of them. Claas consented, and so the tame Kaffirs lugged the wild one into one of the ivory-wagons, and left him to die at his leisure."Late in the night Vassell, wakened by Claas snoring, felt a strong temptation. He might get up and knife out the stone unseen. 'But I put the temptation away,' he told me, 'for my movement might waken Claas, or the Kaffir might kick or groan under the knife, and my brother might spy on me. So I mercifully awaited the hour when the Lord would let the diamond come into my hands without Claas suspecting anything. Besides, it was against my conscience to cut the Kaffir up warm when it seemed so sure he would be cold before morning.'"But next morning the Kaffir was neither dead nor alive. And my cousins were keen to see their wives and children. They must trek on. But Vassell could not leave the diamond. 'And to end the Kaffir's life was,' he told me, 'more than ever against my conscience. That first text, "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy," kept coming back into my mind. It scared me. It seemed to mean I should have the diamond to myself only if I spared the Kaffir. If I killed him Claas might see me extract the stone and claim half. Moreover, I felt sure the jolting of the wagon would end the pagan soon.'"So they trekked. When they outspanned at Swartzdorp, two days later, the Kaffir was more alive than on the first day. No reward yet for conscientious Vassell! He stayed only a day with his wife, and then trekked for Bloemfontein with the Kaffir in his horse-wagon. Claas stayed at Swartzdorp. And all at Swartzdorp thought Vassell had gone crazy about the black."I was then, residing in Bloemfontein, attending a meeting of the Raad. There I saw Vassell gaping at me in the market-place. Never before had I seen trouble in the man's face. When he told me he had brought a hurt Kaffir all the miles from Swartzdorp I felt sure the man was mad."'It may be the Kaffir saved your life from lions?' I asked him."'Nay; I saved his life,' he groaned. 'For we are commanded to do good unto our enemies. And, moreover, this is the Kaffir I fired it into.'"'Fired what?' I asked, not then knowing a word of it all."'Emanuel,' he said, 'my soul is deep in trouble, and surely God has sent you to counsel me. He commanded me to bring the Kaffir here. The text he put into my mind will not go out of my mind. I dream of it each night, and I dream of the Kaffir with it, so it must mean him. And to be merciful that I may obtain the promised mercy I have brought him to the hospital.'"'What does this rant mean? Put it in plain Taal,' I said."Vassell looked all about the market-place, tiptoed his lips to my ears, and whispered, 'Come into my horse-wagon.'"I climbed up in front under the cover, and then heard breathing behind the seat. There lay the Kaffir. I turned on Vassell with 'You said you brought him to the hospital.'"'I am afraid to take him there.'"'Afraid they will require you to pay?'"'Nay, that is not the trouble. I will reveal all to you.'"Then he whispered to me all that I have told you, my friends."'It was borne in on me,' Vassell said, 'that the surgeons would cut out the diamond to save the Kaffir's life, and thus I should obtain the mercy. But now I am in fear they will not let me be present at the operation. They will keep the diamond if they get time to examine it.'"'Drive to the hospital,' I said. 'They will let you be present. I will arrange that. Have you money?'"Yes; he had sold his four best tusks for English gold. So he had plenty to pay the doctors if a bribe should prove necessary."But it was not needed. The house-surgeon had the Kaffir carried in, and they examined him in our presence. Then they told Vassell it was a beautiful case involving the kidneys in some extraordinary way, and they wished to watch what would happen if Matakit lived—that was the outrageous Kaffir's name. To cut the bullet out, they said—for you may be sure Vassell never mentioned diamond to them—would kill the Kaffir. And if they killed him quickly, medical science might forego valuable knowledge which it might gain if they didn't operate an hour before he was quite out of danger by the wound."Think of my conscientious cousin's sad situation!" The old giant gazed about on us as if without guile. "Twelve thousand pounds! And the surgeons would not let him take the Kaffir away. Nor would they let Vassell stay in the ward with his diamond! And he dared not tell the doctors why the operation would have comforted him, lest they should secretly explore the Kaffir as diamondiferous clay!"Here again the tale paused. A sardonic tone had for an instant been steely in the genial voice. But the face of the old man was as in a placid dream. We volunteers, trusting all to our vedettes, grinned, thinking only of Vassell's dilemma. The burgher seemed to ponder on it; or maybe, I thought, he was resting his voice again. So ten seconds passed. Then I heard the rush and grunt of a flac-flarc, the veldt pig. It seemed to have been startled out of the spruit by a vedette, for we faintly heard a horse snort and a man scold. The moon was now very low, but all seemed unchanged except for an increasing restlessness of the picketed horses. They had replied to the snort of the vedette's beast. In an interval of tense silence, the old Africander stared about on our faces with a curious inspection that I now think of as having been one of such pity as the deaf perceive in other men's faces. But at the time I supposed he but wished to assure himself that all were attentively awaiting the rest of his story.Yet when the old burgher spoke again he seemed to have forgotten the great Swartz diamond."Such silence on this veldt!" he murmured. "I remember it alive with great game. Not twenty miles from here I have lain often awake in the night to a concert of lions and hyenas and jackals, with the stamping of wildebeests, and the barking of quaggas, and the rushing away of springbok and blesbok as the breeze gave them our scent. Now we hear nothing, my friends—nothing whatever moving on the plain?""Only the horses and the pickets and the stream," said Deschamps."But I," said the old burgher, "hear more. I hear the sounds of ghosts of troops of great game. And I hear with those sounds other sounds as of the ghosts of a needless war." He sighed heavily, and seemed to sink into sad reverie.Deschamps and his French volunteers would not interrupt him, but I was impatient. "How did your cousin get at the diamond?" I asked."He did not get at it." The whitebeard roused up amiably and resumed his tale:"And yet he did not part with it. For six weeks the Kaffir improved in the Bloemfontein hospital. Then the day came when the surgeons told my cousin they could learn nothing more of the lovely case from outside. I do not know whether they really meant to vivisect the Kaffir, but Vassell was sure of it, for he had that diamond on the brain. He longed to have the Kaffir live out his allotted span—at Swartzdorp."'Surely I must be with Matakit at his ending,' said Vassell to me."Now Matakit had been told how Vassell had mercifully saved him, and he wished for nothing better than to be Vassell's man. So, in the night, after my cousin had whispered to the Kaffir that the surgeons meant to cut him open, Matakit jumped out of the hospital window and hurried to Vassell's horse-wagon waiting on the Modder road."My friends, to tell you all the sad experience of my cousin with that Kaffir I should need to be with you for a week. Our time for talk together is too short—indeed, I seem to hear it going in the hackthorn tops. But still I can give you a little more."Consider, then, that Vassell's family already thought him demented for bringing the wild black from the Wolwe. Trekking with him to Bloemfontein was worse, and carrying him back appeared complete lunacy. But Vassell was the head of a Boer family and must be obeyed by his household, from Tante Anna, his wife, to the smallest Kaffir baby bred on his farm."He told no one but me of the battle in his soul. It was this: the more he longed to knife the diamond out, the more his conscience was warned with that text the Lord had sent him. He had now a fixed idea that he would somehow lose the diamond unless he was merciful to Matakit."Out of sight of the Kaffir my cousin could not be easy, he feared so much the black would run away. To prevent that, Vassell at first carried a loaded rifle all day long. At night he locked the Kaffir in the room partitioned from his own. Its windows he barred with iron bars. This was to save Matakit from the Christian Kaffirs on the farm. At first they were likely to kill him in the dark, such was their jealousy of the wild man honored by a bed in the house of the baas, while their own Christian bones had to rest in the huts and the sheds."But their jealousy changed to deadly fear of Matakit. They imagined that he had bewitched the baas. Matakit, being no fool, soon smelled out that fear. As a witch doctor he lorded it over them. He began to roll in fat, for they brought to his teeth the best of their food. As for their women!"At last Tante Anna looked into this thing. Then the blood of her mother of the Great Trek ran hot in her. I happened to be visiting there at the time. She herself went at the pagan with the sjambok. Vassell turned his back, for he approved the lashing, but the Kaffir so groveled and howled under the whip that my cousin's conscience rose up untimely. It told him that he would be guilty, for the diamond's sake, of complicity in the killing if he did not interfere. Whereupon he took the sjambok from Tante Anna's hands, and ordered her to deal kindly with the Kaffir, as before."'Kindly! The black beast is destroying Christianity on our farm!' she wailed. 'I will slay him with my own hands. And I hope I have done it already!!'"'Alas! no, Anna,' said Vassell. 'He will live. You have given him a reason to run away.'"'Run away? I wish to the Lord he would run away!'"'No, no, my woman,' Vassell whispered. 'You do not understand. Tell it to nobody—but the Kaffir is worth twelve thousand English pounds to me!'"She turned to me laughing. 'Twelve thousand pounds. My poor demented man!'"'When he dies I will prove it,' said Vassell."'What! A dead Kaffir worth a fortune?' She was all contempt for Vassell's folly."Of course he wished to explain to her. But he had an opinion that Matakit's days might be few if Tante Anna came to understand the meaning of the lump on Matakit's black back. Vassell's uncontrollable conscience required her to be no more unmerciful to Matakit. If Anna's sjambok cut out the stone, it might be lost in the litter of the yard."Well, my friends, the word went up and down the Orange Free State, and far into the Colony, and away across the Vaal, that Burgher Vassell Swartz was crazy with kindness for a wild Kaffir! Of course I denied it, and that carried weight, but the mystery grew, for I could not explain the case, so strong was Vassell in holding me to secrecy. To get my cousin out of his trouble I advised him to lend Matakit to me, but he would not agree. Possibly he suspected me of wishing to dig for the diamond."Ten years this sorrow lasted, and all the time Matakit grew fatter, till he could scarcely walk. He was the most overbearing black in all South Africa. What he suspected I do not know, but when he became sure Vassell would not let him be hurt much he wantonly abused the patience of even his devoted baas. Poor Vassell! Sometimes, to ease his sorrows, he used the sjambok on Matakit, but always too gently. Often he raised his gun to end it all; indeed, he got into a way of thinking that the devil was continually instigating him to kill the Kaffir. And every dopper knows that to yield consciously to the devil is the unforgivable sin."The ancient burgher paused once more. And again we, whose senses were trained but to the narrow spaces between Canadian woodlands, heard nothing but a sudden louder tumult of gathered horses, the hoofs of the vedettes, and the tinkle of the spruit. I could not guess why old Emanuel looked so well pleased. He loomed taller, it seemed, as he squatted. It was as if with new vivacity that he spoke on:"The strange things my poor cousin did! I will tell you of at least one more. Five years of Matakit went by, and never again had Vassell gone hunting afar, for he could not leave the fat Kaffir behind, and he feared Matakit would run away if he got near the country of his tribe. But in the sixth year a new inspiration came to Vassell. The Lord might send a lion if he took Matakit where lions might be convenient for sending. Doppers always regard lions as dispensations of Providence when they kill pagan Kaffirs. So he brought Matakit afar to the Lion Veldt. There Vassell would not let his men make a laager—he slept in a wagon himself. And the Lord did send a lion in the night. The blacks lay by the fire. And when it fell low that lion bore a man away out into the darkness at two leaps."'Baas! baas!' Vassell heard his Kaffirs shout. 'Baas! The lion has taken Matakit!' For they had been dozing, and now missed the fat black."The Lord had sent the lion, but the devil was carrying away the diamond. Vassell must be in at the ending, as he had planned. So out with his rifle he sprang, seized a brand, and ran, whirling it into flame, on the dragged body's spoor."'Come back! Oh, baas, come back! The veldt is full of lions!' So the Kaffirs shrieked. But twelve thousand pounds is not forsaken by a Boer hunter for fear of lions. On Vassell ran. He would beat off the lion with the torch. Happy would be his rich life without Matakit! Plainly the Lord would be merciful to him because he had been merciful as commanded by the text."But from the wagons came now a bawl: 'Baas! Baas! I am here, I, Matakit! I was in a wagon.' He had sneaked away from the fire. 'It is but Impugan that the lion has taken.'"Back went Vassell in rage. Now he would finish the Kaffir! For what would his other Kaffirs, the Christians he had bred, his best hunters, too—what would they think but that he valued the accursed pagan above brave old Impugan and all the rest of them? Yet he only beat out his torch on Matakit's head before the diseased conscience stayed his hand once more."Again the white-beard burgher paused. The picketed horses were now still. The moon was gone, and the spruit chattered in starlit darkness. There was no sound of the vedettes, but that was not strange. Yet uneasiness came over me. My comrades shared it. We all stared at the gigantic prisoner with some suspicion that I could not define. He seemed uncanny. From an old man, and especially an old Boer, sneers seemed unnatural. Some diabolical amusement seemed to animate him. As he jeered his cousin he seemed to jeer us. At first I had liked his genial tone. Now he gave me a sense of repulsion. For this I was trying to account when the old burgher stooped and freshened the fire with mealie cobs. The sparks flew high. In that momentary light he resumed his story:"My cousin Vassell was of my Swartzdorp commando when this war began, but he is now a prisoner in St. Helena. Before he left home with his boys he instructed his wife about Matakit."'Be as good to him as you can,' Vassell ordered. 'But if he should come to his end before I return,' then be careful to bury him deeper than jackals or hyenas dig. Bury him carefully by'—no matter where; Vassell showed Tante Anna precisely the place."The woman wept and fell on her husband's neck, and cried: 'Farewell, and fight well; and God bring you and the boys back to me, Vassell, my old heart. You need have no fear but I will carefully bury the Kaffir!'"Gentlemen!" We all sprang up at the change in the old voice. "Gentlemen—you are my prisoners." The burgher rose up, very hard of face.Deschamps drew his pistol. I thrust mine almost into the burgher's face. But he spoke firmly:"What! Shoot your prisoner, with his commando surrounding you. Fifty Mausers are levelled on you. Pooh! No! It would be the end of you all. Lieutenant, your horses are seized. Your vedettes are prisoners. They were knocked off their saddles long ago, when you heard nothing but the horses stamping. There was a Boer among them then. He provoked that stamping. It was the signal to strike down your vedettes. Fifty burghers are listening to my voice now. Here, men!" And at the word the Boer surprise came on. "Oom Emanuel! Oh, Oom Emanuel!" was the cry."I truly grieve for you, gentlemen," said the old burgher ten minutes later. "You were such good listeners—you had ears for nothing but my story. And because of that I leave you food for a whole day. It will be sufficient, if you march well on foot, to take you to my old friend General Pole. I beg you to give him my compliments. But he will not be in good humour to-morrow. Every one of his patrols within twenty miles has been captured to-night, unless something has gone wrong with De Wet, which is unlikely. Do not be cast down, lieutenant. You were not to blame. Your ears were not trained to the veldt. Good-bye. I invite you to visit me, lieutenant, after this war ends, at my Swartzdorp farm. Then I will tell you the rest of the diamond story.""But that is not fair, sir," said Deschamps, whimsically. "I have interest in de story, and I want to know how she end.""It has no end yet." The old burgher smiled broadly. "I was on my way to end it when you stopped me. I hoped to get through more easily without my burghers' aid, but I told them to follow if they saw me stopped. You missed us in searching the spruit this morning."I have really private business at Swartzdorp. Word was brought to me three days ago that Tante Anna dutifully buried Matakit months ago. Vassell was the Kaffir's life; I will be his resurrection. A great diamond of the first water is very salable, and the treasury of the republic is running low.""But it may not be a diamond of the first water," said I."It must be," said the patriarch. "Anything less would be too shabby a mercy to Vassell."BOSS OF THE WORLDAbout one-tenth of the people in Boston are British Canadians, mostly from the Maritime Provinces, an acquisitive prudent folk who see naught to be gained by correcting casual acquaintances who mistake them for down-east Yankees. Often, indeed, they are descendants of Hezekiahs and Priscillas who, having been Royalists during the War of Independence, found subsequent emigration to a British country incumbent on their Puritan consciences. These Americans, returned to the ancestral New England after four or five generations of absence, commonly find Boston ways surprisingly congenial, though they continue to cherish pride in British origin, and a decent warmth of regard for fellow natives of the Maritime Provinces. Hence a known Canadian is frequently addressed by an unsuspected one with, "I am from Canada, too." Having learned this from ten years' experience, I was little surprised when old Adam Bemis, meeting me on the corner of Tremont and Boylston Streets, in May, 1915, stopped and stealthily whispered, "I am from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.""Really! I have always taken you for one of the prevalent minority, a man from the State of Maine.""Most folks do. It doesn't vex me any more. But I've wanted to tell you any time the last ten years.""Then, why didn't you?""It's not my way to hurry. You will understand that well when I explain. I'm needing friendly advice."He had ever worn the air of preoccupation during our twelve years' acquaintance, but that seemed proper to an inventor burdened with the task of devising and selecting novelties for the Annual Announcement by which Miss Minnely's Prize Package Department furthers the popularity of her famous Family Blessing. The happy possessor of five new subscription certificates, on remitting them to Adam's Department, receives by mail, prepaid, Number 1 Prize Package. Number 2 falls to the collector of ten such certificates; and so on, in gradations of Miss Minnely's shrewd beneficence. The magnifico of one thousand certificates obtains choice between a gasoline auto-buggy and a New England farm. To be ever adding to or choosing from the world's changing assortment of moral mechanical toys, celluloid table ornaments, reversible albums, watches warranted gold filled, books combining thrill with edification, and more or less similar "premiums" to no calculable end, might well account for Old Adam's aspect, at once solemn and unsettled."What is your trouble?" I enquired."The Odistor. My greatest discovery!" he whispered."Indeed! For your Department?""We will see about that. It is something mighty wonderful—I don't know but I should say almighty.""Goodness! What is its nature?""I won't say—not here. You couldn't believe me without seeing it work—I wouldn't have believed it myself on anybody's word. I will bring it on to your lodgings—that's a good place for the exhibition. No—I won't even try to explain here—we might be overheard." He glanced up and down Tremont Street, then across—"Sh—there she is herself!" He dodged into a drug store opposite the Touraine.Miss Mehitable Minnely, sole proprietor of The Family Blessing, was moving imposingly from the Boylston Street front of the hotel toward her auto-brougham. At the top step she halted and turned her cordial, broad, dominant countenance in both directions as if to beam on streets crowded with potential prize-package takers. She then spoke the permitting word to two uniformed deferential attendants, who proceeded to stay her carefully by the elbows, in her descent of the stone steps. Foot passengers massed quickly on both sides of her course, watching her large, slow progress respectfully. When the porters had conveyed her across the pavement, and with deferential, persistent boosting made of her an ample lading for the "auto," the chauffeur touched his wide-peaked cap, and slowly rolled her away towards Brimstone Corneren routeto the Blessing Building. Adam came out of the drug store looking relieved."She doesn't like to see any of us on the street, office hours," he explained with lips close to my ear. "Not that I ought to care one mite." He smiled somewhat defiantly and added, "To see me dodging the old lady's eye you'd never guess I'mherboss. But I am." He eyed my wonder exultantly and repeated, "It's so. She doesn't know it. Nobody knows, except me. But Iamher boss. Just whenever I please."On my continued aspect of perturbation he remarked, coolly:—"Naturally you think my head is on wrong. But you will know better this evening. I'm the World's boss whenever I choose to take the responsibility. If I don't choose,shegoes on being my boss, and, of course, I'll want to hold down my job. Well, good-day for the present. Or, say—I forgot—will it suit you if I come about half-past-five? I can't get theremuchearlier. She's not too well pleased if any of us leave before Park Street clock strikes five.""Very well, Mr. Bemis—half past. I shall expect you.""Expect a surprise, too."He walked circumspectly across Boylston Street through the contrary processions of vehicles, to the edging pavement of the Common, on his way toward the new Old State House, and Miss Minnely's no less immense Family Blessing Building.It was precisely twenty-six minutes past five when Adam entered my private office in the rear room of the ground floor of a sky-scraper which overlooks that reach of Charles River lying between the Union Boat Club House and the long, puritanic, impressive simplicity of Harvard Bridge. He did not greet me, being preoccupied with the brown paper-covered package under his left arm. With a certain eagerness in his manner, he placed this not heavy burden on the floor, so that it was hidden by the broad table-desk at which I sat. He stooped. I could hear him carefully untie the string and open the clattering paper.He then placed on the green baize desk-cover a bulbous object of some heavy metal resembling burnished steel. It was not unlike a large white Bermuda onion with a protuberant stem or nozzle one inch long, half-an-inch in diameter, and covered by a metal cap. Obviously; the bulb was of two equal parts, screwed together on a plane at right angles to the perpendicular nozzle. An inch of the upper edge of the lower or basic part was graduated finely as a vernier scale. The whole lower edge of the upper half was divided, apparently into three hundred and sixty degrees, as is the horizontal circle of a theodolite. The parts were fitted with a clamp and tangent screw, by which the vernier could be moved with minutest precision along the graduated circle."I was four years experimenting before I found out how to confine it," said Adam."What? A high explosive!""No—nothing to be nervous about. But what it is I can't exactly say.""A scientific mystery, eh?""It might be called so, seeing as I don't myself know the real nature of the force any more than electricians know what electricity is. They understand how to generate and employ it, that's all. Did you ever see a whirlwind start?""No.""Think again. Not even a little one?""Of course I have often seen little whirlwinds on the street carrying up dust and scraps of paper, sometimes dropping them instantly, sometimes whirling them away.""On calm days?""Really I can't remember. But I think not. It doesn't stand to reason.""That's where you are mistaken. It is in the strongest kind of sunshine on dead calm days that those little whirlwinds do start. What do you suppose starts them?""I never gave it a thought.""Few do. I've given it years of close thinking. You have read of ships on tropic seas in dead calm having top-sails torn to rags by whirlwinds starting 'way up there, deck and sea quiet as this room?""I've read of that. But I don't believe all the wonderful items I read in the papers.""There are more wonders than the papers print. I saw that happen twice in the Indian Ocean, when I was a young man. I have been studying more or less on it ever since. Now I will show you the remainder of my Odistor. I call it that because folks when I was young used to talk of a mysterious Odic force."To the desk he lifted a black leather grip-sack, as narrow, as low, and about twice as long as one of those in which surgeons carry their implements. From this he extracted a simple-seeming apparatus which I still suppose to have been of the nature of an electric machine. Externally it resembled a rectangular umbrella box of metal similar to that of the bulb. It was about four feet in length and four inches in height and in breadth. That end which he placed nearest the window was grooved to receive one-half the bulb accurately. Clamped longitudinally to the top of the box was a copper tube half-an-inch in exterior diameter, and closed, except for a pinhole sight, at the end farthest from the window. The other, or open end, was divided evenly by a perpendicular filament apparently of platinum.Adam placed this sighted box on the green baize, its longer axis pointing across the Charles River to Cambridge, through the window. He carefully propped up the wire-net sash. Stooping at the desk he looked through the pin-hole sight and shifted the box to his satisfaction."Squint along the line of sight," he said, giving place to me. I stooped and complied."You see Memorial Hall tower right in the line?""Precisely.""But what is nearest on the Cambridge shore?""The stone revetment wall.""I mean next beyond that.""The long shed with the big sign 'Builders' in black letters.""All right. Sit here and watch that shed. No matter if it blows away. They were going to tear it down anyway." He placed my chair directly behind the sighted tube.With an access of eagerness in his countenance, and something of tremor apparent in his clutching fingers, he lifted the bulb, unscrewed its metal cap and worked the tangent screw while watching the vernier intently. He was evidently screwing the basal half closer to the nozzle-bearing upper portion.From a minute orifice in the nozzle or stem something exuded that appeared first as a tiny, shimmering, sunbright, revolving globule. At that instant he placed the bulb on its base in its niche or groove at the outer or window end of the sighted box. Thus the strange revolving globule was rising directly in the line of sight."Watch that shed," Adam ordered hoarsely.I could not wholly take my eyes off the singular sphere, which resembled nothing that I have elsewhere seen so much as a focus of sun rays from a burning glass. But this intensely bright spot or mass—for it appeared to have substance even as the incandescent carbon of an Edison lamp seems to possess substance exterior to the carbon—rose expanding in an increasing spiral within an iridescent translucent film that clung by a tough stem to the orifice of the nozzle, somewhat as a soap-bubble clings to the pipe whence it is blown. Yet this brilliant, this enlarging, this magic globule was plainly whirling on its perpendicular axis as a waterspout does, and that with speed terrific. The mere friction of its enclosing film on the air stirred such wind in the room as might come from an eighteen-inch electric fan. In shape the infernal thing rapidly became an inverted cone with spiral convolutions. It hummed like a distant, idly-running circular saw, a great top, or the far-off, mysterious forewarning of a typhoon."Now!" Adam touched a button on the top of the metal box.The gleaming, whirling, humming, prismatic spiral was then about eighteen inches high. It vanished without sound or spark, as if the film had been totally destroyed and the contained incandescence quenched on liberation. For one instant I experienced a sense of suffocation, as if all the air had been drawn out of the room. The inner shutters clashed, the holland sunshade clattered, the door behind me snicked open, air from the corridor rushed in."See the river!" Adam was exultant, but not too excited to replace the metal cap on the nozzle.Certainly the Charles River was traversed by a gust that raised white caps instantly. A bulk-headed sailing-dory, owned by a Union Boat Clubman whom I knew, lay over so far that her sail was submerged, and her centre-board came completely out of water. Only the head and clutching forearms of the two men aboard her could be seen. Afterward they told me they had been quite surprised by the squall. Beyond the Cambridge revetment wall a wide cloud of dust sprang up, hiding the "Builders" shed.When this structure reappeared Adam gasped, then stood breathless, his countenance expressive of surprise.He looked down at the Odistor, pondering, left hand fingers pressing his throbbing temple. Lifting the bulb he inspected the vernier, laid it down again, put on his spectacles and once more peered intently at the graduated scale."I see," he said, "I was the least thing too much afraid of doing damage in Cambridge back of the shed. But you saw the wind?""Certainly I saw wind.""You know how it started?""I don't know what to think. It was very strange. What is the stuff?""Tell me what starts the whirlwind or the cyclone, and I can tell you that. All I'm sure of is that I can originate the force, control it, and release it in any strength I choose. Do you remember the chap called Æolus we used to read about in the Latin book at school, he that bagged up the winds long ago? I guess there was truth at the back of that fable. He found out the secret before me, and he used it to some extent. It died with him, and they made a god out of his memory—they had some right to be grateful that he spared them. It must go to the grave with me—so far as I've reasoned on the situation. But that's all right. What's worrying me is the question—Shall I make any use of it?""I can see no use for it.""What! Think again. It is the Irresistible Force. There is no withstanding it. I can start a stronger hurricane than ever yet blew. You remember what happened to that Hawaiian Island in the tornado last year? That was a trifle to what I can do. It is only a matter of confining a larger quantity in a stronger receiver and giving it a swifter send off with a more powerful battery. I can widen the track and lengthen the course to any extent.""Suppose you can. Still it is only a destroyer. What's the good of it?""What's the good of a Krupp gun. Or a shell. Or a bullet?""They are saleable."He looked keenly at me for some seconds. "Do you see that far, or do you only not see how it could be used as a weapon? That's it, eh! Well, I'll tell you. There's England spending more'n ten million dollars a day in the war. Suppose I go to Lord Kitchener. He's a practical, quick man—in half an hour he sees what I can do. 'What will you give,' I ask him, 'to have the Crown Prince and the rest of them Prussians blown clear away?' 'What is your price?' he inquires. 'Ten million pounds would be cheap,' I reply. 'Take five,' he says, 'we are not made of money.' 'Well, seeing it's you,' I tell him.""It is a considerable discount, Adam. But then you are a British subject.""Yes—kind of. But the conversation was imaginary. Discount or no discount, I feel no special call to blow away whole armies of Germans. If I could set the Odistor on the Kaiser, and the Crown Prince, and a dozen or so more of the Prussian gang, I'd do it, of course. But how could I find just where they were? Blowing away whole armies of men don't seem right to me.""But you needn't do that yourself. Sell your secret outright to the British Government."Adam stared as one truly astonished."Now what you think you're talking about?" he remonstrated. "Can't you see farther than that? Suppose I sell the secret to Kitchener. Suppose he clears out all the Germans with it. What next? Why, Ireland! Kitchener is a Jingo Imperialist, which I never was and never will be. I've heard of Jingoes saying time and again that England's interests would be suited if Ireland was ten feet under water. Or suppose he only blows the Irish out of Connaught, just to show the others they'd better cut out the Sinn Finn. What then? First place, I like the Irish. My wife's Irish. Next, consider all the world. Suppose England has got the irresistible weapon. There's no opposing it. Suppose France was to try, some time after this war is over. Away go her cities, farms, vineyards, people, higher than Gilroy's kite. What next? All the rest of the world then know they must do what the English say—Germans, Italians, Russians, Yankees, Canadians. Now I'm a cosmopolitan, I am. All kind of folk look good to me.""But England ruling the world means universal peace," I said enthusiastically. "Free trade, equal rights, all the grand altruistic English ideals established forever and ever! Adam, let England have it! You'll be remembered as the greatest benefactor of humanity. A Bemis statue in Trafalgar Square, London! Sure! Think of that glory, Adam.""For putting the English on top," he replied dryly. "I can't seem to want to. Not but what the English are all right. But my kind of Maritime Province Canadians are considerably more American than English, though they never rightly know it till they've lived here and in the old country. We're at home with Yankee ways and Yankee notions. In England we're only colonials. Not but what the war may change that a bit.""Take your secret to Washington then. President Wilson will see that you get all that you can reasonably ask for it.""Sure—but while the pro-German microbe is active in Washington, I will not offer the thing there. Yet my first notion was to let the United States have it—on conditions.""What conditions?""Well, I'd bargain they must leave Canada alone. Woodrow would boss the rest of the world, I was thinking, just the way I'll do it myself if ever Idomake up my mind.Nobossing—everybody free and equal and industrious—no aristocracy, except just enough to laugh at—no domineering. But I ain't so pleased with Woodrow as I was when he started presidenting. He ain't set the Filipinos free yet. And he knowing how bad they was treated by this Republic. Why, the worst grab ever England made wasn't a circumstance to Yankees allying with Aguinaldo, and then seizing his country.""To what government will you sell?" I inquired patiently."Well, now, if I was going to sell to any government it would be Sir Wilfrid Laurier's. But he's got no government, now. Ontario folks beat him last election, for being too reasonable. If ever there was the makings of a good benevolent Despot, Laurier's the man. I used to be saying to myself while I was perfecting the Odistor, says I inwardly, 'I'll give it to Laurier.' Of course, I was calculating he'd use it first thing to annex the United States to Canada. That would be good for both countries—if Laurier was on top. He'd give this Republic Responsible Government, stop letting it be run by hole-and-corner committees and trusts and billionaires, and, first of all, he'd establish Free Trade all over the continent. That would be good for Nova Scotia apple-growers, and, mind you, I'd like to do something for my native Province before I die. Statue in Trafalgar Square, says you. Think of a statue in Halifax—erected to me! 'ADAM BEMIS, BENEFACTOR OF NOVA SCOTIA!' And a big apple-tree kind of surrounding my figure with blessings! Sounds kind of good, eh. Why don't I give it to Laurier? Well he's getting old. He ain't any too strong in health, either. He mightn't live long enough to get things running right. And he'd be sure to tell his colleagues how the Odistor is worked—he's such a strong party man. That's the only fault he's got. Well, now, think what happens after he drops out. Why, some ordinary cuss of his Party takes over the Bossdom of the world. Now, all ordinary Canadian politicians are hungry to be knighted, or baroneted. Laurier's successor, likely enough, would give away the Odistor to England, in return for a handle to his name. And once England got the Odistor—why, you know what I told you before.""Well, what Government will you sell to?""To none. Germany's out of the question, of course. France, Russia, Italy, Japan—they're all unfitter than England, Canada or the States. Once I planned to raise up the people that are down—the Poles, Irish, Armenians, Filipinos, and so on. Then I got to fancying the Irish with power to blow everything above rock in England out to sea. Would they be satisfied with moving the Imperial Parliament to College Green, giving England a Viceroy and local councils, putting a Catholic King in George's shoes and fixing the coronation oath to abjuring Protestant errors? I can't seem to think they'd be so mild. What would the Poles do to the Prussians, Austrians, and Russians; or the Armenians to the Turks, if I gave them the Odistor? No—I won't take such risks. If I gave the thing to one Nation the only fair deal would be to give it to all, big and little alike, making the smallest as powerful as the biggest, everyone with power to blow all the others off the footstool. What then? Would mutual fear make them live peaceably? I'm feared not. Probably every one would be so afraid of every other that each would be for getting its Odistors to work first. There'd be cyclones jamming into cyclones all over outdoors, a teetotal destruction of crops, and everything and everybody blown clean away at once. Wonder where they'd light?"His query, did not divert me from the main matter. "If you won't sell, how can you get any money out of it?" I asked."No difficulty getting money out of it. Here I am able to blow everything away—say Berlin and thereabouts for a starter, just to show how the thing works. Then all hands would know I could blow away all Europe—except maybe the Alps. I don't know exactly how strong the Odistor could blow. Wouldn't all the Governments unite to pay menotto do it. See? All the money John Rockefeller ever handled wouldn't pay five minutes' interest on what I ought to get for justnotdoing it. No harm in not hurting anybody—see? And me working for Miss Minnely for forty-five dollars a week!""Resign, Adam," I said earnestly, for the financial prospect was dazzling. "Take me in as junior partner. Let us get at this thing together.""What? Blackmailing the nations! And you a professional Liberal like myself! No! It wouldn't be straight. I can't have a partner—you'll see that before I get through. But now I suppose that you will admit that Icouldget any amount of money out of the thing?""You have thought it all out wonderfully, Adam.""Wish I could stop thinking about it. I'm only taking you gradually over the field—not telling my conclusions yet—but only some of my thoughts by the way. In fact it's years since I gave up the notion of opening the secret to any nation, or to all nations. For one thing I couldn't get into any nation's possession if I wanted to. Suppose, for instance, I offered it to the Washington Administration. Naturally the President orders experts to report on it—say six army engineers. I show them how. What happens? Why, those six men are bosses of the Administration, the nation and all the world. They can't but see that right away if they've got any gumption. Will they abstain from using the power? Scarcely. Will they stick togetherandboss? They won't, because they can't. It is not in human nature. Common sense, common logic, would compel each one to try to get his private Odistor going first, for fear each of the others might be for blowing him and the other four away in order to boss alone. Fact is, the moment I showed the process to any other man—and this is why I can't take you in as partner—I'd have to blow him straight away out beyond Cape Cod, for fear he would send me flying soon as he saw universal Bossdom in his hands.""That seems inevitable," I admitted."Certainly. I can't risk the human race under any Boss except myself—or somebody that I am sure means as well as I do.""Our political principles are in many respects the same," I suggested, hopefully."Will you—will any man except me—would even Laurier stay Liberal if he had absolute power? What wouldyoudo with the Odistor anyway?""Get a fortune out of it.""How?""Well, we might try this scheme—detain ocean liners in port until the Companies agreed to pay what the traffic will bear.""Gosh—you think I've got the conscience of a Railway Corporation? No, sir! But what use in prolonging this part of our talk? I have thought of a thousand ways of using the thing on a large scale, but they are all out of the question, for one good and sufficient reason—folks would lock me up or kill me if I once convinced 'em of the power I possess. I couldn't blame them, theymustdo it to feel safe themselves. The only sure way for me to get big money out of it safely would be by retiring to a lonely sea island and advertising what I intended to do on a specified day—blow away some forest on the mainland, say, or send a blast straight overland to the Rockies and clear them of snow in a path fifty miles wide. Of course, folks would laugh at the advertisement—to say nothing of the expense of inserting it—and to convince them I'd have todoit. After that I might call on the civilised governments to send me all the gold, diamonds, and fine things I could think of. But what good would fine things do me? I should be afraid to let any ship land its cargo, or any other human being come on the island. I couldn't even have a cook, for fear she might be bribed to poison me or bust the Odistor—and I've got no fancy to do my own cooking. What good to Boss the World at that price? The Kaiser himself wouldn't pay it. Universally feared as he is already hated—but not bound to live alone. For a while I was thinking to seclude myself that way in self-sacrifice to the general good. I thought of issuing an order to all governments to stop fighting, stop governing and just let real freedom be established—the brotherhood of man, share and share alike, equal wages all round, same kind of houses and grub and clothes, perfect democracy! But suppose the Governments didn't obey? Politicians are smart—they'd soon see I dursn't leave my island to go travelling and inspecting what was going on all over. I couldn't receive deputations coming to me for redress of grievances, for fear they might be coming to rid the world of its benevolent despot. Shrewd folks ashore would soon catch on to my fix—me there all alone, busy keeping ten or a dozen Odistors blowing gales off shore for fifty miles or so to keep people out of any kind of striking distance, and everlastingly sending hurricanes upward to clear the sky of Zeppelins and aeroplanes that might be sent to drop nitro-glycerine on me. Next thing some speculator would be pretending to be my sole agent, and ordering the world to fetchhimthe wealth. How could I know, any more than God seems to, what things were done in my name?""Employ Marconi," I suggested; "have him send you aerial news of what's going on everywhere. Then you could threaten wrong-doers everywhere with the Odistor."Marconi is a good man, mebby, but think of the temptation to him. How could I be sure he was giving me facts. He could stuff me with good reports, and all the time be bossing the world himself, forcing the nations to give up to him by the threat that I'd back him and blow the disobedient to Kingdom Come. Besides, I don't know how to operate Marconi's instruments, and, if I did, all my time would be taken up receiving his reports. No,sir. There is no honest, safe, comfortable way for me to get rich out of the Odistor. I have known that for a considerable time.""Then, why did you wish to consult me?""Well, first place, I wanted some friend to know what kind of a self-denying ordinance I'm living under. To be comprehended by at least one person is a human need. Besides that, I want your opinion on a point of conscience. Is the Odistor mine?""Yours? Isn't it your exclusive discovery?""But isn't it Miss Minnely's property? I experimented in her time.""During office hours?""Mostly. And did all the construction in her workshop with her materials. She supposed I was tinkering up a new attraction for the Annual Announcement. Isn't it hers by rights? She's been paying me forty-five dollars a week right along. When she hired me she told me she expected exclusive devotion to the interests of the Family Blessing. And I agreed. Seems I'm bound in honour to give it up to her.""For nothing?""Well, she's dead set against raising wages. But I was thinking she might boost me up to fifty a week.""That seems little for making her Boss of the World.""Oh, Miss Minnely wouldn't go in forthat. A man would. A woman is too conservative. Miss Minnely's one notion is theBlessing. It's not money she is after, but doing good. She's sure the way to improve the world is to get the Blessing regularly into every family. I don't know but she's right too. It's harmless, anyway."
THE SWARTZ DIAMOND
The Boer puzzled us. It was not because he loomed so big in the haze against the sunset; but he seemed at a mile's distance to detect us. We thought the cover perfect, for the hackthorn tops were higher than our horses' heads. If he from so far could see patches of khaki through bushes, his eyes must be better than our fieldglasses. If he did not see us, why did he wave his hat as in salutation?
"Maybe he only suspect one patrol at de ford. Vat you t'ink, Sergeant McTavish?" said Lieutenant Deschamps to me.
"Perhaps he thinks some of his own kind may hold the ford," I suggested.
The others said nothing. They were fifteen French Canadians, including Corporal Jongers. We lay still behind our prone horses, and kept our Krags on the Boer.
He seemed to diminish as he advanced slowly from the mirage, but still he looked uncommonly big—and venerable, too. His hair and beard grew long and white, though he sat up as alert as any young man. At ten yards a pack-pony followed him. When half a mile away the burgher raised both hands above his head.
"He come for surrender, you t'ink, sergeant?" Lieutenant Deschamps is a gentleman. Because I was of another race he always treated me with more than the consideration due to a good non-com. Or possibly it was because he knew I had been advocate in Montreal before joining the mounted Canadian contingent.
"Better keep down and keep him covered," I replied. "That may be a signal." I stared about the horizon. The veldt was bare, except for the straggle of hackthorns fringing the curve about the ford. There could be no other Boer within three miles of us, unless hidden by the meanderings of the Wolwe, which runs twelve feet below the plain. But we had searched ten miles of its bed during the day. Westward lay the kopjes from among which the old Boer had apparently ridden.
He came calmly down the breach of the opposite bank and as far as the middle of the brawling shallow within fifty yards of us before Deschamps cried "Halt!" At the word we sprang up, accoutrements rattling, horses snorting. The old burgher looked up at us quizzically, passing his hand down his beard and gathering its length above his mouth before he spoke.
"Take care some of those guns don't go off," he said, with no trace of Dutch accent.
"You surrender?" Deschamps stepped forward.
"Sir, I am going to Swartzdorp. Did you not see me hold up my hands?"
"But for sure you could not see us here?"
He smiled and pointed up to the sky. In the blue a vulture swung wide above us. "So I knew," said the burgher, "Khakis were hiding. Boers would have come out. They would have recognized me."
"Your name?"
"Emanuel Swartz."
"Bon! The great landowner! I have much pleasure to see you. Come in, monsieur. Eef only you brought in your commando, how glad!"
"They may come yet," he said. "It depends." He shook his rein, and the big bay brought him up the breach into the midst of us. The pack-pony, which had imitated his halt, followed.
"You will not stop me. I have private business at Swartzdorp," he said.
"Truly I regret," said Deschamps. "But my orders! Here you must stay, monsieur, this night. To-morrow General Pole. He will be most glad to parole you, I have hope."
"Oh, very well, lieutenant," said Swartz, philosophically. "I dare say he won't send me to St. Helena." He dismounted, leaving his Mauser strapped to his saddle. Then he handed me his bandoleer. "I make you welcome to my pack also," he said hospitably. "There's some biltong and meal. Perhaps it will improve your fare."
"It will be poor stuff if it doesn't," I told him.
"You give your parole, sir?" asked Deschamps.
"For the night, yes. I will not try to escape."
His cordial, easy accents came with a certain surprising effect from one who was so unkempt and, in spite of his years, so formidable. I had never before seen one of the great Boer land-owners. In his manner one could perceive, if not a certain condescension, at least the elevated kindness of a patriarchal gentleman accustomed to warm by affability the hearts of many descendants and dependents. About Swartzdorp we had heard much of his English mother, his English wife, and his lifelong friendship with English officers and gentlemen. It did not seem surprising that he should have come in voluntarily now that Bloemfontein and Pretoria were in Lord Roberts's hands.
It was cold for us in khaki that evening by the Wolwe, though we did not lack overcoats. The spruit tinkled icily along patches of gravel in the blue clay, and late June's high moon seemed pouring down a Canadian wintriness. "No fire," ordered Deschamps, lest far-sighted Boer parties, skilled in surprises, might locate us. But the old burgher showed how to make small glowing heaps of dry offal, which had been plentifully left of old by troops of deer and antelope coming to drink at the spruit. Over one of these tiny smokeless fires our lieutenant sat with the prisoner. I think I see again the reflection of the little flame flickering on the old giant's enormous beard and shapely outspread hands.
We had supped heavily on his meat and meal, but sleep in that nipping air came by dozes only, and drowsiness departed when digestion had relieved repletion. At midnight, when the vedettes were changed and the moon sagged low, we all were more wakeful than early in the evening. There had been little talk, and that in the low voices of endurance; but now Deschamps and Swartz fell into discourse about the Kimberley mines. This led to discussing the greater diamonds of South Africa, and so on till the burgher began a story stranger than fiction:
"One of the biggest stones ever taken from blue clay is still uncut. It has never been offered for sale. Near this very place it was found by Vassell Swartz, my cousin. The man is not rich even for a Free State burgher. He is fond of money. He believes his diamond to be worth twelve thousand pounds. No man could wish harder to sell anything. And yet he has not offered it. He has not even shown it. His wife has not seen it. He has had it constantly near him for eleven years. He has handled it frequently—in its setting. But he has not ventured to look at it since the morning after he found it. You wonder at that. Is it possible a rough diamond can shine so bright as dangerously to dazzle the eyes? No; Vassell would be glad to stare at it all day. But its setting prevents him. And yet he set it himself."
The old burgher paused and looked about on our puzzled faces with some air of satisfaction at their interest.
"It is quite a riddle," said Deschamps.
"So it is. And I will make it harder. You have been told that we Boers think nothing of killing Kaffirs? But all Swartzdorp could tell you that my cousin Vassell could scarcely bear to let a Kaffir out of his sight. That is mysterious? Well, I will not go on talking in parables. I will tell you the thing just as I heard it from Vassell or know about it myself.
"Eleven years ago, Vassell and his brother, my cousin Claas, went off as usual to Makori's country beyond the Limpopo, elephant-hunting. Ivory was so plenty that they trekked back a month earlier than they had expected. On the return Vassell's riding-horse fell lame not long after crossing this very Wolwe spruit by a higher ford. My cousin gave the beast no rest till evening, and no attention until after they had made a laager against lions and had eaten supper. Then he took a brand from the fire and looked into the hoof. In it he found a whitish stone of about the bigness of an elephant-bullet of six to the pound. It was of the colour of alum, and in the torchlight it glistened as the scale of a fish.
"Vassell had never seen a rough diamond. And he had heard of diamonds as brighter than glittering glass. He thought only that the pebble was a pretty stone. The man's heart was soft with nearing his wife and children, so he slipped the pebble into his empty elephant-bullet pouch, thinking to give it for a toy to his little Anna. There it lay forgotten until his fingers went groping for a bullet at the next daybreak. Kaffirs were then trying to rush my cousins' laager.
"Wild Kaffirs these were, driven from Kimberley for unruliness in drink. They were going back to their tribe; they had come far without food, and they smelled the meat and meal in the wagons—so Matakit afterward told. But no hunger could have driven them against a Boer laager. They mistook the wagons for the wagons of Englishmen."
The French Canadians smiled unoffended, but my jaws snapped. Swartz turned to me courteously:
"They mistook the wagons for those of English traders unskilled in arms and trekking provisions to the mines. Though their first rush showed them their mistake, they went mad over their losses and came on twice more. Then they guessed, from the way my cousins reserved their fire, that their ammunition was low. So Matakit howled them on for a fourth rush.
"My cousins and their six Christian Kaffirs were now in alarm, for their cartridges were nearly all gone. It was then that Vassell's fingers groped in his elephant-bullet pouch, where he felt something rounding out the leather. That was the forgotten pebble. But its bigness was too great for the muzzle-loading elephant-rifle. So my cousin rammed it into the wide-mouthed, old-fashioned roer, a blunderbuss that our fathers' fathers praised because it frightened Kaffirs more than it hurt them. In justice to the roer it should have been loaded with a handful of slugs. But with only powder and the pebble it made such flash and noise that all the living wild blacks, but one, ran away howling. The one that fell before Vassell's pebble was the biggest of all, and their leader. There he lay kicking and bellowing like a buffalo bull, ten yards from the wagons.
"'While he bawled we knelt in the laager,' Vassell told me, 'and we offered up thanks for this our deliverance, even like unto the deliverance of David by the pebble of the brook.'
"Then they ate breakfast while their Kaffirs inspanned, and still the wild one roared.
"'It would be merciful, brother Vassell,' said Claas as they drank coffee, 'to put the Lord's creature out of his pain.'
"'Nay,' said Vassell; 'my conscience will not consent to what Free State law might call murder. And, moreover, the Kaffir's pain is a plain judgment of the Almighty.' Vassell is a dopper, like Oom Paul, and a dopper is quick to see the Almighty operating through himself. So they left the black thief gnashing, with five more who lay still, meat for vultures' beaks or lions' jaws.
"In four or five hours' time my cousins were nigh to Truter's drift on the Modder. There they saw two Englishmen and one Israelite digging into the blue-clay shoal.
"'Good day,' shouts Claas. 'What are you digging for?'
"'Diamonds, Dutchman, d—n you,' said the Englishmen, laughing.
"They came up out of the river-bed and showed my cousins four small rough stones which they had found elsewhere.
"Vassell looked closely at the stones. Then he knew that his pebble had been a great gem. He put innocent, simple dopper questions about the value of diamonds. And the Israelite said that a first-rate stone of the bigness of more than an elephant-bullet would be worth from twelve to twenty thousand pounds. Vassell felt that Israelite's eyes piercing him, and so he gave no more sign of excitement than a skull. But he was wondering if the grandfathers' old roer had sent the pebble through the Kaffir, which seemed unlikely.
"My cousins traded the flesh of a springbok for cartridges, and the English went away up the spruit, while Claas got ready to cross at Truter's. But Vassell made delay; he said that hunger was rummaging his inside.
"'And that was the truth, Emanuel,' he told me later, 'for we had trekked since dawn. But it is not always needful to tell all the truth. Was I to arouse in Claas a greedy desire to share in the diamond? True,' said Vassell, 'we had agreed to share and share alike in the hunt, but the stone was not ivory, skin, nor meat, and I alone found it. We are commanded to agree with our adversary "in the way with him." And by halting in that place for the boiling of coffee there would be time to pray for direction. If the Almighty would have us trek back to the wounded Kaffir, it would be wise to turn before crossing at Truter's.'
"Of course my cousin Claas, when he heard of Vassell's hunger, felt hungry too, and the Kaffirs were told to prepare the meal. Meantime Vassell took his Bible from the wagon-box and fell on his knees. He expected the Lord would order him back to the Wolwe, and so it happened. But to induce Claas to obey the Lord's direction without understanding the whole thing was the trouble.
"Like an inspiration a familiar text came to Vassell's mind. 'Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.' He showed this to Claas as his reason for turning about. The text had a new meaning for Vassell. I tell you again he felt that he had been inspired to remember it. You have to bear that in mind, or you will not rightly understand how his brain was afterward affected.
"'But it would be foolishness to apply the text to a wild Kaffir four hours' trek back,' said Claas.
"'Nay, not if the Kaffir be subdued,' said Vassell.
"'He is more than subdued; he is dead,' said Claas.
"'Nay, he may not yet have perished,' said Vassell. But he felt sure the black was dead. And he felt equally sure he had been inspired to understand that he himself should obtain mercy in the shape of the diamond if he returned even as the good Samaritan to the Kaffir fallen by the way. Still Claas was stiff-necked, until Vassell opened the Book at Jeremiah iii. 12: 'Return, ... for I am merciful, saith the Lord.' He handed it to Claas without a word.
"Claas naturally supposed that Vassell had opened the Bible at random, as the doppers often do when they are seeking direction. And hence Claas saw in this text a clear leading back to the Wolwe. Yet he wished to rest and smoke tobacco for a long hour after eating. But Vassell was greatly inspired with texts that day. He pointed to I Samuel xx. 38: 'Jonathan cried after the lad, Make speed, haste, stay not.' Then he fell into such a groaning and sighing about it that Claas could not smoke in peace.
"'Anything is better than your rumblings,' said Claas, and so they hastened on the backward course. 'For,' as Vassell told me, 'I was in deep tribulation of fear lest the vultures might gulp down the diamond, or some beak strike it afar.'"
Here the huge old burgher sat up straighter and paused so unexpectedly that his sudden silence was startling. I imagined he listened to something far off in the stillness of the waning moon. Lieutenant Deschamps and the French Canadians sat indifferent, but I sprang up and put hands to my ears. Nothing could I hear but the occasional stamping of our horses, the walking hoofs of our vedettes by the river's bend, and the clinking of swift water over gravel.
"Did you hear something strange?" the patriarch asked me.
"Did you?" I asked.
"Is it likely that a great-grandfather's ears can hear better than a young man's?" he asked courteously.
"But you stopped to listen," I replied.
Then he shamed me by saying gently: "An old voice may need a little rest. But now I will go on:
"My cousins trekked back as fast as their oxen could walk. They found the Kaffir still squirming, and covering his eyes from the vultures. This went to Vassell's heart. He could not cut the diamond out of the living. And perhaps it was not in the man. Vassell drove away the vultures and examined the wound. Then his heart was lifted up exceedingly, for as he told me, 'fear had been heavy in me lest the diamond had gone clear through the Kaffir and been lost on the veldt. But now my fingers felt it under the flesh of his back. An inch more had sent it through. And it seemed so sure the pagan must die before morning that my conscience was clear against extracting the stone in haste.'
"This Wolwe Veldt was then Lion Veldt, and Vassell thought it prudent to carry the Kaffir into the night-laager, for lions bolt big chunks, and the diamond might be in one of them. Claas consented, and so the tame Kaffirs lugged the wild one into one of the ivory-wagons, and left him to die at his leisure.
"Late in the night Vassell, wakened by Claas snoring, felt a strong temptation. He might get up and knife out the stone unseen. 'But I put the temptation away,' he told me, 'for my movement might waken Claas, or the Kaffir might kick or groan under the knife, and my brother might spy on me. So I mercifully awaited the hour when the Lord would let the diamond come into my hands without Claas suspecting anything. Besides, it was against my conscience to cut the Kaffir up warm when it seemed so sure he would be cold before morning.'
"But next morning the Kaffir was neither dead nor alive. And my cousins were keen to see their wives and children. They must trek on. But Vassell could not leave the diamond. 'And to end the Kaffir's life was,' he told me, 'more than ever against my conscience. That first text, "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy," kept coming back into my mind. It scared me. It seemed to mean I should have the diamond to myself only if I spared the Kaffir. If I killed him Claas might see me extract the stone and claim half. Moreover, I felt sure the jolting of the wagon would end the pagan soon.'
"So they trekked. When they outspanned at Swartzdorp, two days later, the Kaffir was more alive than on the first day. No reward yet for conscientious Vassell! He stayed only a day with his wife, and then trekked for Bloemfontein with the Kaffir in his horse-wagon. Claas stayed at Swartzdorp. And all at Swartzdorp thought Vassell had gone crazy about the black.
"I was then, residing in Bloemfontein, attending a meeting of the Raad. There I saw Vassell gaping at me in the market-place. Never before had I seen trouble in the man's face. When he told me he had brought a hurt Kaffir all the miles from Swartzdorp I felt sure the man was mad.
"'It may be the Kaffir saved your life from lions?' I asked him.
"'Nay; I saved his life,' he groaned. 'For we are commanded to do good unto our enemies. And, moreover, this is the Kaffir I fired it into.'
"'Fired what?' I asked, not then knowing a word of it all.
"'Emanuel,' he said, 'my soul is deep in trouble, and surely God has sent you to counsel me. He commanded me to bring the Kaffir here. The text he put into my mind will not go out of my mind. I dream of it each night, and I dream of the Kaffir with it, so it must mean him. And to be merciful that I may obtain the promised mercy I have brought him to the hospital.'
"'What does this rant mean? Put it in plain Taal,' I said.
"Vassell looked all about the market-place, tiptoed his lips to my ears, and whispered, 'Come into my horse-wagon.'
"I climbed up in front under the cover, and then heard breathing behind the seat. There lay the Kaffir. I turned on Vassell with 'You said you brought him to the hospital.'
"'I am afraid to take him there.'
"'Afraid they will require you to pay?'
"'Nay, that is not the trouble. I will reveal all to you.'
"Then he whispered to me all that I have told you, my friends.
"'It was borne in on me,' Vassell said, 'that the surgeons would cut out the diamond to save the Kaffir's life, and thus I should obtain the mercy. But now I am in fear they will not let me be present at the operation. They will keep the diamond if they get time to examine it.'
"'Drive to the hospital,' I said. 'They will let you be present. I will arrange that. Have you money?'
"Yes; he had sold his four best tusks for English gold. So he had plenty to pay the doctors if a bribe should prove necessary.
"But it was not needed. The house-surgeon had the Kaffir carried in, and they examined him in our presence. Then they told Vassell it was a beautiful case involving the kidneys in some extraordinary way, and they wished to watch what would happen if Matakit lived—that was the outrageous Kaffir's name. To cut the bullet out, they said—for you may be sure Vassell never mentioned diamond to them—would kill the Kaffir. And if they killed him quickly, medical science might forego valuable knowledge which it might gain if they didn't operate an hour before he was quite out of danger by the wound.
"Think of my conscientious cousin's sad situation!" The old giant gazed about on us as if without guile. "Twelve thousand pounds! And the surgeons would not let him take the Kaffir away. Nor would they let Vassell stay in the ward with his diamond! And he dared not tell the doctors why the operation would have comforted him, lest they should secretly explore the Kaffir as diamondiferous clay!"
Here again the tale paused. A sardonic tone had for an instant been steely in the genial voice. But the face of the old man was as in a placid dream. We volunteers, trusting all to our vedettes, grinned, thinking only of Vassell's dilemma. The burgher seemed to ponder on it; or maybe, I thought, he was resting his voice again. So ten seconds passed. Then I heard the rush and grunt of a flac-flarc, the veldt pig. It seemed to have been startled out of the spruit by a vedette, for we faintly heard a horse snort and a man scold. The moon was now very low, but all seemed unchanged except for an increasing restlessness of the picketed horses. They had replied to the snort of the vedette's beast. In an interval of tense silence, the old Africander stared about on our faces with a curious inspection that I now think of as having been one of such pity as the deaf perceive in other men's faces. But at the time I supposed he but wished to assure himself that all were attentively awaiting the rest of his story.
Yet when the old burgher spoke again he seemed to have forgotten the great Swartz diamond.
"Such silence on this veldt!" he murmured. "I remember it alive with great game. Not twenty miles from here I have lain often awake in the night to a concert of lions and hyenas and jackals, with the stamping of wildebeests, and the barking of quaggas, and the rushing away of springbok and blesbok as the breeze gave them our scent. Now we hear nothing, my friends—nothing whatever moving on the plain?"
"Only the horses and the pickets and the stream," said Deschamps.
"But I," said the old burgher, "hear more. I hear the sounds of ghosts of troops of great game. And I hear with those sounds other sounds as of the ghosts of a needless war." He sighed heavily, and seemed to sink into sad reverie.
Deschamps and his French volunteers would not interrupt him, but I was impatient. "How did your cousin get at the diamond?" I asked.
"He did not get at it." The whitebeard roused up amiably and resumed his tale:
"And yet he did not part with it. For six weeks the Kaffir improved in the Bloemfontein hospital. Then the day came when the surgeons told my cousin they could learn nothing more of the lovely case from outside. I do not know whether they really meant to vivisect the Kaffir, but Vassell was sure of it, for he had that diamond on the brain. He longed to have the Kaffir live out his allotted span—at Swartzdorp.
"'Surely I must be with Matakit at his ending,' said Vassell to me.
"Now Matakit had been told how Vassell had mercifully saved him, and he wished for nothing better than to be Vassell's man. So, in the night, after my cousin had whispered to the Kaffir that the surgeons meant to cut him open, Matakit jumped out of the hospital window and hurried to Vassell's horse-wagon waiting on the Modder road.
"My friends, to tell you all the sad experience of my cousin with that Kaffir I should need to be with you for a week. Our time for talk together is too short—indeed, I seem to hear it going in the hackthorn tops. But still I can give you a little more.
"Consider, then, that Vassell's family already thought him demented for bringing the wild black from the Wolwe. Trekking with him to Bloemfontein was worse, and carrying him back appeared complete lunacy. But Vassell was the head of a Boer family and must be obeyed by his household, from Tante Anna, his wife, to the smallest Kaffir baby bred on his farm.
"He told no one but me of the battle in his soul. It was this: the more he longed to knife the diamond out, the more his conscience was warned with that text the Lord had sent him. He had now a fixed idea that he would somehow lose the diamond unless he was merciful to Matakit.
"Out of sight of the Kaffir my cousin could not be easy, he feared so much the black would run away. To prevent that, Vassell at first carried a loaded rifle all day long. At night he locked the Kaffir in the room partitioned from his own. Its windows he barred with iron bars. This was to save Matakit from the Christian Kaffirs on the farm. At first they were likely to kill him in the dark, such was their jealousy of the wild man honored by a bed in the house of the baas, while their own Christian bones had to rest in the huts and the sheds.
"But their jealousy changed to deadly fear of Matakit. They imagined that he had bewitched the baas. Matakit, being no fool, soon smelled out that fear. As a witch doctor he lorded it over them. He began to roll in fat, for they brought to his teeth the best of their food. As for their women!
"At last Tante Anna looked into this thing. Then the blood of her mother of the Great Trek ran hot in her. I happened to be visiting there at the time. She herself went at the pagan with the sjambok. Vassell turned his back, for he approved the lashing, but the Kaffir so groveled and howled under the whip that my cousin's conscience rose up untimely. It told him that he would be guilty, for the diamond's sake, of complicity in the killing if he did not interfere. Whereupon he took the sjambok from Tante Anna's hands, and ordered her to deal kindly with the Kaffir, as before.
"'Kindly! The black beast is destroying Christianity on our farm!' she wailed. 'I will slay him with my own hands. And I hope I have done it already!!'
"'Alas! no, Anna,' said Vassell. 'He will live. You have given him a reason to run away.'
"'Run away? I wish to the Lord he would run away!'
"'No, no, my woman,' Vassell whispered. 'You do not understand. Tell it to nobody—but the Kaffir is worth twelve thousand English pounds to me!'
"She turned to me laughing. 'Twelve thousand pounds. My poor demented man!'
"'When he dies I will prove it,' said Vassell.
"'What! A dead Kaffir worth a fortune?' She was all contempt for Vassell's folly.
"Of course he wished to explain to her. But he had an opinion that Matakit's days might be few if Tante Anna came to understand the meaning of the lump on Matakit's black back. Vassell's uncontrollable conscience required her to be no more unmerciful to Matakit. If Anna's sjambok cut out the stone, it might be lost in the litter of the yard.
"Well, my friends, the word went up and down the Orange Free State, and far into the Colony, and away across the Vaal, that Burgher Vassell Swartz was crazy with kindness for a wild Kaffir! Of course I denied it, and that carried weight, but the mystery grew, for I could not explain the case, so strong was Vassell in holding me to secrecy. To get my cousin out of his trouble I advised him to lend Matakit to me, but he would not agree. Possibly he suspected me of wishing to dig for the diamond.
"Ten years this sorrow lasted, and all the time Matakit grew fatter, till he could scarcely walk. He was the most overbearing black in all South Africa. What he suspected I do not know, but when he became sure Vassell would not let him be hurt much he wantonly abused the patience of even his devoted baas. Poor Vassell! Sometimes, to ease his sorrows, he used the sjambok on Matakit, but always too gently. Often he raised his gun to end it all; indeed, he got into a way of thinking that the devil was continually instigating him to kill the Kaffir. And every dopper knows that to yield consciously to the devil is the unforgivable sin."
The ancient burgher paused once more. And again we, whose senses were trained but to the narrow spaces between Canadian woodlands, heard nothing but a sudden louder tumult of gathered horses, the hoofs of the vedettes, and the tinkle of the spruit. I could not guess why old Emanuel looked so well pleased. He loomed taller, it seemed, as he squatted. It was as if with new vivacity that he spoke on:
"The strange things my poor cousin did! I will tell you of at least one more. Five years of Matakit went by, and never again had Vassell gone hunting afar, for he could not leave the fat Kaffir behind, and he feared Matakit would run away if he got near the country of his tribe. But in the sixth year a new inspiration came to Vassell. The Lord might send a lion if he took Matakit where lions might be convenient for sending. Doppers always regard lions as dispensations of Providence when they kill pagan Kaffirs. So he brought Matakit afar to the Lion Veldt. There Vassell would not let his men make a laager—he slept in a wagon himself. And the Lord did send a lion in the night. The blacks lay by the fire. And when it fell low that lion bore a man away out into the darkness at two leaps.
"'Baas! baas!' Vassell heard his Kaffirs shout. 'Baas! The lion has taken Matakit!' For they had been dozing, and now missed the fat black.
"The Lord had sent the lion, but the devil was carrying away the diamond. Vassell must be in at the ending, as he had planned. So out with his rifle he sprang, seized a brand, and ran, whirling it into flame, on the dragged body's spoor.
"'Come back! Oh, baas, come back! The veldt is full of lions!' So the Kaffirs shrieked. But twelve thousand pounds is not forsaken by a Boer hunter for fear of lions. On Vassell ran. He would beat off the lion with the torch. Happy would be his rich life without Matakit! Plainly the Lord would be merciful to him because he had been merciful as commanded by the text.
"But from the wagons came now a bawl: 'Baas! Baas! I am here, I, Matakit! I was in a wagon.' He had sneaked away from the fire. 'It is but Impugan that the lion has taken.'
"Back went Vassell in rage. Now he would finish the Kaffir! For what would his other Kaffirs, the Christians he had bred, his best hunters, too—what would they think but that he valued the accursed pagan above brave old Impugan and all the rest of them? Yet he only beat out his torch on Matakit's head before the diseased conscience stayed his hand once more."
Again the white-beard burgher paused. The picketed horses were now still. The moon was gone, and the spruit chattered in starlit darkness. There was no sound of the vedettes, but that was not strange. Yet uneasiness came over me. My comrades shared it. We all stared at the gigantic prisoner with some suspicion that I could not define. He seemed uncanny. From an old man, and especially an old Boer, sneers seemed unnatural. Some diabolical amusement seemed to animate him. As he jeered his cousin he seemed to jeer us. At first I had liked his genial tone. Now he gave me a sense of repulsion. For this I was trying to account when the old burgher stooped and freshened the fire with mealie cobs. The sparks flew high. In that momentary light he resumed his story:
"My cousin Vassell was of my Swartzdorp commando when this war began, but he is now a prisoner in St. Helena. Before he left home with his boys he instructed his wife about Matakit.
"'Be as good to him as you can,' Vassell ordered. 'But if he should come to his end before I return,' then be careful to bury him deeper than jackals or hyenas dig. Bury him carefully by'—no matter where; Vassell showed Tante Anna precisely the place.
"The woman wept and fell on her husband's neck, and cried: 'Farewell, and fight well; and God bring you and the boys back to me, Vassell, my old heart. You need have no fear but I will carefully bury the Kaffir!'
"Gentlemen!" We all sprang up at the change in the old voice. "Gentlemen—you are my prisoners." The burgher rose up, very hard of face.
Deschamps drew his pistol. I thrust mine almost into the burgher's face. But he spoke firmly:
"What! Shoot your prisoner, with his commando surrounding you. Fifty Mausers are levelled on you. Pooh! No! It would be the end of you all. Lieutenant, your horses are seized. Your vedettes are prisoners. They were knocked off their saddles long ago, when you heard nothing but the horses stamping. There was a Boer among them then. He provoked that stamping. It was the signal to strike down your vedettes. Fifty burghers are listening to my voice now. Here, men!" And at the word the Boer surprise came on. "Oom Emanuel! Oh, Oom Emanuel!" was the cry.
"I truly grieve for you, gentlemen," said the old burgher ten minutes later. "You were such good listeners—you had ears for nothing but my story. And because of that I leave you food for a whole day. It will be sufficient, if you march well on foot, to take you to my old friend General Pole. I beg you to give him my compliments. But he will not be in good humour to-morrow. Every one of his patrols within twenty miles has been captured to-night, unless something has gone wrong with De Wet, which is unlikely. Do not be cast down, lieutenant. You were not to blame. Your ears were not trained to the veldt. Good-bye. I invite you to visit me, lieutenant, after this war ends, at my Swartzdorp farm. Then I will tell you the rest of the diamond story."
"But that is not fair, sir," said Deschamps, whimsically. "I have interest in de story, and I want to know how she end."
"It has no end yet." The old burgher smiled broadly. "I was on my way to end it when you stopped me. I hoped to get through more easily without my burghers' aid, but I told them to follow if they saw me stopped. You missed us in searching the spruit this morning.
"I have really private business at Swartzdorp. Word was brought to me three days ago that Tante Anna dutifully buried Matakit months ago. Vassell was the Kaffir's life; I will be his resurrection. A great diamond of the first water is very salable, and the treasury of the republic is running low."
"But it may not be a diamond of the first water," said I.
"It must be," said the patriarch. "Anything less would be too shabby a mercy to Vassell."
BOSS OF THE WORLD
About one-tenth of the people in Boston are British Canadians, mostly from the Maritime Provinces, an acquisitive prudent folk who see naught to be gained by correcting casual acquaintances who mistake them for down-east Yankees. Often, indeed, they are descendants of Hezekiahs and Priscillas who, having been Royalists during the War of Independence, found subsequent emigration to a British country incumbent on their Puritan consciences. These Americans, returned to the ancestral New England after four or five generations of absence, commonly find Boston ways surprisingly congenial, though they continue to cherish pride in British origin, and a decent warmth of regard for fellow natives of the Maritime Provinces. Hence a known Canadian is frequently addressed by an unsuspected one with, "I am from Canada, too." Having learned this from ten years' experience, I was little surprised when old Adam Bemis, meeting me on the corner of Tremont and Boylston Streets, in May, 1915, stopped and stealthily whispered, "I am from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia."
"Really! I have always taken you for one of the prevalent minority, a man from the State of Maine."
"Most folks do. It doesn't vex me any more. But I've wanted to tell you any time the last ten years."
"Then, why didn't you?"
"It's not my way to hurry. You will understand that well when I explain. I'm needing friendly advice."
He had ever worn the air of preoccupation during our twelve years' acquaintance, but that seemed proper to an inventor burdened with the task of devising and selecting novelties for the Annual Announcement by which Miss Minnely's Prize Package Department furthers the popularity of her famous Family Blessing. The happy possessor of five new subscription certificates, on remitting them to Adam's Department, receives by mail, prepaid, Number 1 Prize Package. Number 2 falls to the collector of ten such certificates; and so on, in gradations of Miss Minnely's shrewd beneficence. The magnifico of one thousand certificates obtains choice between a gasoline auto-buggy and a New England farm. To be ever adding to or choosing from the world's changing assortment of moral mechanical toys, celluloid table ornaments, reversible albums, watches warranted gold filled, books combining thrill with edification, and more or less similar "premiums" to no calculable end, might well account for Old Adam's aspect, at once solemn and unsettled.
"What is your trouble?" I enquired.
"The Odistor. My greatest discovery!" he whispered.
"Indeed! For your Department?"
"We will see about that. It is something mighty wonderful—I don't know but I should say almighty."
"Goodness! What is its nature?"
"I won't say—not here. You couldn't believe me without seeing it work—I wouldn't have believed it myself on anybody's word. I will bring it on to your lodgings—that's a good place for the exhibition. No—I won't even try to explain here—we might be overheard." He glanced up and down Tremont Street, then across—"Sh—there she is herself!" He dodged into a drug store opposite the Touraine.
Miss Mehitable Minnely, sole proprietor of The Family Blessing, was moving imposingly from the Boylston Street front of the hotel toward her auto-brougham. At the top step she halted and turned her cordial, broad, dominant countenance in both directions as if to beam on streets crowded with potential prize-package takers. She then spoke the permitting word to two uniformed deferential attendants, who proceeded to stay her carefully by the elbows, in her descent of the stone steps. Foot passengers massed quickly on both sides of her course, watching her large, slow progress respectfully. When the porters had conveyed her across the pavement, and with deferential, persistent boosting made of her an ample lading for the "auto," the chauffeur touched his wide-peaked cap, and slowly rolled her away towards Brimstone Corneren routeto the Blessing Building. Adam came out of the drug store looking relieved.
"She doesn't like to see any of us on the street, office hours," he explained with lips close to my ear. "Not that I ought to care one mite." He smiled somewhat defiantly and added, "To see me dodging the old lady's eye you'd never guess I'mherboss. But I am." He eyed my wonder exultantly and repeated, "It's so. She doesn't know it. Nobody knows, except me. But Iamher boss. Just whenever I please."
On my continued aspect of perturbation he remarked, coolly:—"Naturally you think my head is on wrong. But you will know better this evening. I'm the World's boss whenever I choose to take the responsibility. If I don't choose,shegoes on being my boss, and, of course, I'll want to hold down my job. Well, good-day for the present. Or, say—I forgot—will it suit you if I come about half-past-five? I can't get theremuchearlier. She's not too well pleased if any of us leave before Park Street clock strikes five."
"Very well, Mr. Bemis—half past. I shall expect you."
"Expect a surprise, too."
He walked circumspectly across Boylston Street through the contrary processions of vehicles, to the edging pavement of the Common, on his way toward the new Old State House, and Miss Minnely's no less immense Family Blessing Building.
It was precisely twenty-six minutes past five when Adam entered my private office in the rear room of the ground floor of a sky-scraper which overlooks that reach of Charles River lying between the Union Boat Club House and the long, puritanic, impressive simplicity of Harvard Bridge. He did not greet me, being preoccupied with the brown paper-covered package under his left arm. With a certain eagerness in his manner, he placed this not heavy burden on the floor, so that it was hidden by the broad table-desk at which I sat. He stooped. I could hear him carefully untie the string and open the clattering paper.
He then placed on the green baize desk-cover a bulbous object of some heavy metal resembling burnished steel. It was not unlike a large white Bermuda onion with a protuberant stem or nozzle one inch long, half-an-inch in diameter, and covered by a metal cap. Obviously; the bulb was of two equal parts, screwed together on a plane at right angles to the perpendicular nozzle. An inch of the upper edge of the lower or basic part was graduated finely as a vernier scale. The whole lower edge of the upper half was divided, apparently into three hundred and sixty degrees, as is the horizontal circle of a theodolite. The parts were fitted with a clamp and tangent screw, by which the vernier could be moved with minutest precision along the graduated circle.
"I was four years experimenting before I found out how to confine it," said Adam.
"What? A high explosive!"
"No—nothing to be nervous about. But what it is I can't exactly say."
"A scientific mystery, eh?"
"It might be called so, seeing as I don't myself know the real nature of the force any more than electricians know what electricity is. They understand how to generate and employ it, that's all. Did you ever see a whirlwind start?"
"No."
"Think again. Not even a little one?"
"Of course I have often seen little whirlwinds on the street carrying up dust and scraps of paper, sometimes dropping them instantly, sometimes whirling them away."
"On calm days?"
"Really I can't remember. But I think not. It doesn't stand to reason."
"That's where you are mistaken. It is in the strongest kind of sunshine on dead calm days that those little whirlwinds do start. What do you suppose starts them?"
"I never gave it a thought."
"Few do. I've given it years of close thinking. You have read of ships on tropic seas in dead calm having top-sails torn to rags by whirlwinds starting 'way up there, deck and sea quiet as this room?"
"I've read of that. But I don't believe all the wonderful items I read in the papers."
"There are more wonders than the papers print. I saw that happen twice in the Indian Ocean, when I was a young man. I have been studying more or less on it ever since. Now I will show you the remainder of my Odistor. I call it that because folks when I was young used to talk of a mysterious Odic force."
To the desk he lifted a black leather grip-sack, as narrow, as low, and about twice as long as one of those in which surgeons carry their implements. From this he extracted a simple-seeming apparatus which I still suppose to have been of the nature of an electric machine. Externally it resembled a rectangular umbrella box of metal similar to that of the bulb. It was about four feet in length and four inches in height and in breadth. That end which he placed nearest the window was grooved to receive one-half the bulb accurately. Clamped longitudinally to the top of the box was a copper tube half-an-inch in exterior diameter, and closed, except for a pinhole sight, at the end farthest from the window. The other, or open end, was divided evenly by a perpendicular filament apparently of platinum.
Adam placed this sighted box on the green baize, its longer axis pointing across the Charles River to Cambridge, through the window. He carefully propped up the wire-net sash. Stooping at the desk he looked through the pin-hole sight and shifted the box to his satisfaction.
"Squint along the line of sight," he said, giving place to me. I stooped and complied.
"You see Memorial Hall tower right in the line?"
"Precisely."
"But what is nearest on the Cambridge shore?"
"The stone revetment wall."
"I mean next beyond that."
"The long shed with the big sign 'Builders' in black letters."
"All right. Sit here and watch that shed. No matter if it blows away. They were going to tear it down anyway." He placed my chair directly behind the sighted tube.
With an access of eagerness in his countenance, and something of tremor apparent in his clutching fingers, he lifted the bulb, unscrewed its metal cap and worked the tangent screw while watching the vernier intently. He was evidently screwing the basal half closer to the nozzle-bearing upper portion.
From a minute orifice in the nozzle or stem something exuded that appeared first as a tiny, shimmering, sunbright, revolving globule. At that instant he placed the bulb on its base in its niche or groove at the outer or window end of the sighted box. Thus the strange revolving globule was rising directly in the line of sight.
"Watch that shed," Adam ordered hoarsely.
I could not wholly take my eyes off the singular sphere, which resembled nothing that I have elsewhere seen so much as a focus of sun rays from a burning glass. But this intensely bright spot or mass—for it appeared to have substance even as the incandescent carbon of an Edison lamp seems to possess substance exterior to the carbon—rose expanding in an increasing spiral within an iridescent translucent film that clung by a tough stem to the orifice of the nozzle, somewhat as a soap-bubble clings to the pipe whence it is blown. Yet this brilliant, this enlarging, this magic globule was plainly whirling on its perpendicular axis as a waterspout does, and that with speed terrific. The mere friction of its enclosing film on the air stirred such wind in the room as might come from an eighteen-inch electric fan. In shape the infernal thing rapidly became an inverted cone with spiral convolutions. It hummed like a distant, idly-running circular saw, a great top, or the far-off, mysterious forewarning of a typhoon.
"Now!" Adam touched a button on the top of the metal box.
The gleaming, whirling, humming, prismatic spiral was then about eighteen inches high. It vanished without sound or spark, as if the film had been totally destroyed and the contained incandescence quenched on liberation. For one instant I experienced a sense of suffocation, as if all the air had been drawn out of the room. The inner shutters clashed, the holland sunshade clattered, the door behind me snicked open, air from the corridor rushed in.
"See the river!" Adam was exultant, but not too excited to replace the metal cap on the nozzle.
Certainly the Charles River was traversed by a gust that raised white caps instantly. A bulk-headed sailing-dory, owned by a Union Boat Clubman whom I knew, lay over so far that her sail was submerged, and her centre-board came completely out of water. Only the head and clutching forearms of the two men aboard her could be seen. Afterward they told me they had been quite surprised by the squall. Beyond the Cambridge revetment wall a wide cloud of dust sprang up, hiding the "Builders" shed.
When this structure reappeared Adam gasped, then stood breathless, his countenance expressive of surprise.
He looked down at the Odistor, pondering, left hand fingers pressing his throbbing temple. Lifting the bulb he inspected the vernier, laid it down again, put on his spectacles and once more peered intently at the graduated scale.
"I see," he said, "I was the least thing too much afraid of doing damage in Cambridge back of the shed. But you saw the wind?"
"Certainly I saw wind."
"You know how it started?"
"I don't know what to think. It was very strange. What is the stuff?"
"Tell me what starts the whirlwind or the cyclone, and I can tell you that. All I'm sure of is that I can originate the force, control it, and release it in any strength I choose. Do you remember the chap called Æolus we used to read about in the Latin book at school, he that bagged up the winds long ago? I guess there was truth at the back of that fable. He found out the secret before me, and he used it to some extent. It died with him, and they made a god out of his memory—they had some right to be grateful that he spared them. It must go to the grave with me—so far as I've reasoned on the situation. But that's all right. What's worrying me is the question—Shall I make any use of it?"
"I can see no use for it."
"What! Think again. It is the Irresistible Force. There is no withstanding it. I can start a stronger hurricane than ever yet blew. You remember what happened to that Hawaiian Island in the tornado last year? That was a trifle to what I can do. It is only a matter of confining a larger quantity in a stronger receiver and giving it a swifter send off with a more powerful battery. I can widen the track and lengthen the course to any extent."
"Suppose you can. Still it is only a destroyer. What's the good of it?"
"What's the good of a Krupp gun. Or a shell. Or a bullet?"
"They are saleable."
He looked keenly at me for some seconds. "Do you see that far, or do you only not see how it could be used as a weapon? That's it, eh! Well, I'll tell you. There's England spending more'n ten million dollars a day in the war. Suppose I go to Lord Kitchener. He's a practical, quick man—in half an hour he sees what I can do. 'What will you give,' I ask him, 'to have the Crown Prince and the rest of them Prussians blown clear away?' 'What is your price?' he inquires. 'Ten million pounds would be cheap,' I reply. 'Take five,' he says, 'we are not made of money.' 'Well, seeing it's you,' I tell him."
"It is a considerable discount, Adam. But then you are a British subject."
"Yes—kind of. But the conversation was imaginary. Discount or no discount, I feel no special call to blow away whole armies of Germans. If I could set the Odistor on the Kaiser, and the Crown Prince, and a dozen or so more of the Prussian gang, I'd do it, of course. But how could I find just where they were? Blowing away whole armies of men don't seem right to me."
"But you needn't do that yourself. Sell your secret outright to the British Government."
Adam stared as one truly astonished.
"Now what you think you're talking about?" he remonstrated. "Can't you see farther than that? Suppose I sell the secret to Kitchener. Suppose he clears out all the Germans with it. What next? Why, Ireland! Kitchener is a Jingo Imperialist, which I never was and never will be. I've heard of Jingoes saying time and again that England's interests would be suited if Ireland was ten feet under water. Or suppose he only blows the Irish out of Connaught, just to show the others they'd better cut out the Sinn Finn. What then? First place, I like the Irish. My wife's Irish. Next, consider all the world. Suppose England has got the irresistible weapon. There's no opposing it. Suppose France was to try, some time after this war is over. Away go her cities, farms, vineyards, people, higher than Gilroy's kite. What next? All the rest of the world then know they must do what the English say—Germans, Italians, Russians, Yankees, Canadians. Now I'm a cosmopolitan, I am. All kind of folk look good to me."
"But England ruling the world means universal peace," I said enthusiastically. "Free trade, equal rights, all the grand altruistic English ideals established forever and ever! Adam, let England have it! You'll be remembered as the greatest benefactor of humanity. A Bemis statue in Trafalgar Square, London! Sure! Think of that glory, Adam."
"For putting the English on top," he replied dryly. "I can't seem to want to. Not but what the English are all right. But my kind of Maritime Province Canadians are considerably more American than English, though they never rightly know it till they've lived here and in the old country. We're at home with Yankee ways and Yankee notions. In England we're only colonials. Not but what the war may change that a bit."
"Take your secret to Washington then. President Wilson will see that you get all that you can reasonably ask for it."
"Sure—but while the pro-German microbe is active in Washington, I will not offer the thing there. Yet my first notion was to let the United States have it—on conditions."
"What conditions?"
"Well, I'd bargain they must leave Canada alone. Woodrow would boss the rest of the world, I was thinking, just the way I'll do it myself if ever Idomake up my mind.Nobossing—everybody free and equal and industrious—no aristocracy, except just enough to laugh at—no domineering. But I ain't so pleased with Woodrow as I was when he started presidenting. He ain't set the Filipinos free yet. And he knowing how bad they was treated by this Republic. Why, the worst grab ever England made wasn't a circumstance to Yankees allying with Aguinaldo, and then seizing his country."
"To what government will you sell?" I inquired patiently.
"Well, now, if I was going to sell to any government it would be Sir Wilfrid Laurier's. But he's got no government, now. Ontario folks beat him last election, for being too reasonable. If ever there was the makings of a good benevolent Despot, Laurier's the man. I used to be saying to myself while I was perfecting the Odistor, says I inwardly, 'I'll give it to Laurier.' Of course, I was calculating he'd use it first thing to annex the United States to Canada. That would be good for both countries—if Laurier was on top. He'd give this Republic Responsible Government, stop letting it be run by hole-and-corner committees and trusts and billionaires, and, first of all, he'd establish Free Trade all over the continent. That would be good for Nova Scotia apple-growers, and, mind you, I'd like to do something for my native Province before I die. Statue in Trafalgar Square, says you. Think of a statue in Halifax—erected to me! 'ADAM BEMIS, BENEFACTOR OF NOVA SCOTIA!' And a big apple-tree kind of surrounding my figure with blessings! Sounds kind of good, eh. Why don't I give it to Laurier? Well he's getting old. He ain't any too strong in health, either. He mightn't live long enough to get things running right. And he'd be sure to tell his colleagues how the Odistor is worked—he's such a strong party man. That's the only fault he's got. Well, now, think what happens after he drops out. Why, some ordinary cuss of his Party takes over the Bossdom of the world. Now, all ordinary Canadian politicians are hungry to be knighted, or baroneted. Laurier's successor, likely enough, would give away the Odistor to England, in return for a handle to his name. And once England got the Odistor—why, you know what I told you before."
"Well, what Government will you sell to?"
"To none. Germany's out of the question, of course. France, Russia, Italy, Japan—they're all unfitter than England, Canada or the States. Once I planned to raise up the people that are down—the Poles, Irish, Armenians, Filipinos, and so on. Then I got to fancying the Irish with power to blow everything above rock in England out to sea. Would they be satisfied with moving the Imperial Parliament to College Green, giving England a Viceroy and local councils, putting a Catholic King in George's shoes and fixing the coronation oath to abjuring Protestant errors? I can't seem to think they'd be so mild. What would the Poles do to the Prussians, Austrians, and Russians; or the Armenians to the Turks, if I gave them the Odistor? No—I won't take such risks. If I gave the thing to one Nation the only fair deal would be to give it to all, big and little alike, making the smallest as powerful as the biggest, everyone with power to blow all the others off the footstool. What then? Would mutual fear make them live peaceably? I'm feared not. Probably every one would be so afraid of every other that each would be for getting its Odistors to work first. There'd be cyclones jamming into cyclones all over outdoors, a teetotal destruction of crops, and everything and everybody blown clean away at once. Wonder where they'd light?"
His query, did not divert me from the main matter. "If you won't sell, how can you get any money out of it?" I asked.
"No difficulty getting money out of it. Here I am able to blow everything away—say Berlin and thereabouts for a starter, just to show how the thing works. Then all hands would know I could blow away all Europe—except maybe the Alps. I don't know exactly how strong the Odistor could blow. Wouldn't all the Governments unite to pay menotto do it. See? All the money John Rockefeller ever handled wouldn't pay five minutes' interest on what I ought to get for justnotdoing it. No harm in not hurting anybody—see? And me working for Miss Minnely for forty-five dollars a week!"
"Resign, Adam," I said earnestly, for the financial prospect was dazzling. "Take me in as junior partner. Let us get at this thing together."
"What? Blackmailing the nations! And you a professional Liberal like myself! No! It wouldn't be straight. I can't have a partner—you'll see that before I get through. But now I suppose that you will admit that Icouldget any amount of money out of the thing?"
"You have thought it all out wonderfully, Adam."
"Wish I could stop thinking about it. I'm only taking you gradually over the field—not telling my conclusions yet—but only some of my thoughts by the way. In fact it's years since I gave up the notion of opening the secret to any nation, or to all nations. For one thing I couldn't get into any nation's possession if I wanted to. Suppose, for instance, I offered it to the Washington Administration. Naturally the President orders experts to report on it—say six army engineers. I show them how. What happens? Why, those six men are bosses of the Administration, the nation and all the world. They can't but see that right away if they've got any gumption. Will they abstain from using the power? Scarcely. Will they stick togetherandboss? They won't, because they can't. It is not in human nature. Common sense, common logic, would compel each one to try to get his private Odistor going first, for fear each of the others might be for blowing him and the other four away in order to boss alone. Fact is, the moment I showed the process to any other man—and this is why I can't take you in as partner—I'd have to blow him straight away out beyond Cape Cod, for fear he would send me flying soon as he saw universal Bossdom in his hands."
"That seems inevitable," I admitted.
"Certainly. I can't risk the human race under any Boss except myself—or somebody that I am sure means as well as I do."
"Our political principles are in many respects the same," I suggested, hopefully.
"Will you—will any man except me—would even Laurier stay Liberal if he had absolute power? What wouldyoudo with the Odistor anyway?"
"Get a fortune out of it."
"How?"
"Well, we might try this scheme—detain ocean liners in port until the Companies agreed to pay what the traffic will bear."
"Gosh—you think I've got the conscience of a Railway Corporation? No, sir! But what use in prolonging this part of our talk? I have thought of a thousand ways of using the thing on a large scale, but they are all out of the question, for one good and sufficient reason—folks would lock me up or kill me if I once convinced 'em of the power I possess. I couldn't blame them, theymustdo it to feel safe themselves. The only sure way for me to get big money out of it safely would be by retiring to a lonely sea island and advertising what I intended to do on a specified day—blow away some forest on the mainland, say, or send a blast straight overland to the Rockies and clear them of snow in a path fifty miles wide. Of course, folks would laugh at the advertisement—to say nothing of the expense of inserting it—and to convince them I'd have todoit. After that I might call on the civilised governments to send me all the gold, diamonds, and fine things I could think of. But what good would fine things do me? I should be afraid to let any ship land its cargo, or any other human being come on the island. I couldn't even have a cook, for fear she might be bribed to poison me or bust the Odistor—and I've got no fancy to do my own cooking. What good to Boss the World at that price? The Kaiser himself wouldn't pay it. Universally feared as he is already hated—but not bound to live alone. For a while I was thinking to seclude myself that way in self-sacrifice to the general good. I thought of issuing an order to all governments to stop fighting, stop governing and just let real freedom be established—the brotherhood of man, share and share alike, equal wages all round, same kind of houses and grub and clothes, perfect democracy! But suppose the Governments didn't obey? Politicians are smart—they'd soon see I dursn't leave my island to go travelling and inspecting what was going on all over. I couldn't receive deputations coming to me for redress of grievances, for fear they might be coming to rid the world of its benevolent despot. Shrewd folks ashore would soon catch on to my fix—me there all alone, busy keeping ten or a dozen Odistors blowing gales off shore for fifty miles or so to keep people out of any kind of striking distance, and everlastingly sending hurricanes upward to clear the sky of Zeppelins and aeroplanes that might be sent to drop nitro-glycerine on me. Next thing some speculator would be pretending to be my sole agent, and ordering the world to fetchhimthe wealth. How could I know, any more than God seems to, what things were done in my name?"
"Employ Marconi," I suggested; "have him send you aerial news of what's going on everywhere. Then you could threaten wrong-doers everywhere with the Odistor.
"Marconi is a good man, mebby, but think of the temptation to him. How could I be sure he was giving me facts. He could stuff me with good reports, and all the time be bossing the world himself, forcing the nations to give up to him by the threat that I'd back him and blow the disobedient to Kingdom Come. Besides, I don't know how to operate Marconi's instruments, and, if I did, all my time would be taken up receiving his reports. No,sir. There is no honest, safe, comfortable way for me to get rich out of the Odistor. I have known that for a considerable time."
"Then, why did you wish to consult me?"
"Well, first place, I wanted some friend to know what kind of a self-denying ordinance I'm living under. To be comprehended by at least one person is a human need. Besides that, I want your opinion on a point of conscience. Is the Odistor mine?"
"Yours? Isn't it your exclusive discovery?"
"But isn't it Miss Minnely's property? I experimented in her time."
"During office hours?"
"Mostly. And did all the construction in her workshop with her materials. She supposed I was tinkering up a new attraction for the Annual Announcement. Isn't it hers by rights? She's been paying me forty-five dollars a week right along. When she hired me she told me she expected exclusive devotion to the interests of the Family Blessing. And I agreed. Seems I'm bound in honour to give it up to her."
"For nothing?"
"Well, she's dead set against raising wages. But I was thinking she might boost me up to fifty a week."
"That seems little for making her Boss of the World."
"Oh, Miss Minnely wouldn't go in forthat. A man would. A woman is too conservative. Miss Minnely's one notion is theBlessing. It's not money she is after, but doing good. She's sure the way to improve the world is to get the Blessing regularly into every family. I don't know but she's right too. It's harmless, anyway."