Itash proceeded to pay his morning call upon the person whom the newspapers had christened “The Mid-European Napoleon of Modern Finance and Diplomacy.” He was passed through into the presence of the great man within a very few minutes. He entered courteous, self-assured, dignified. He was reduced within a few seconds to a state of abject collapse. For years afterwards he remembered the horror of those moments. Cornelius Blunn’s opening words filled him with blank amazement, his final ones stripped him of every shred of confidence and self-respect.

“I have been associated at different times,” the latter concluded, “with rogues and hucksters, thieves, liars and fools. I have never yet entrusted the destinies of a great nation to a man who cannot keep his mouth shut, even in his sleep.”

“But how could I tell?” the young man gasped. “How do I know even now that what you tell me is true?”

“Let me remind you of this,” Blunn went on. “We talked for hours one night in Monte Carlo on the matter of steel. With two companies over here we are all right. Over the third we have no control or any influence. We discussed the possibility of this third company adding up the amount of your contracts with their two rivals—even leaving out the steel plates we sent you from Germany—and of presenting a report to the Limitation of Armaments Conference. You remember that conversation?”

“I remember it perfectly,” Itash groaned.

“You left me with your mind full of the subject. It was at the time when Mademoiselle Cleo was your fancy. Very well, the other day Mademoiselle calls upon our friend Grant Slattery, and the next morning he visits the representatives of each one of those steel firms. Can’t you see that trouble or suspicion at the Conference might upset everything we have done?”

“I know,” Itash muttered. “Still, they will not discover anything that counts in time. We have been very clever. We have four secret harbours and two secret dockyards, besides the one in China. Each battleship we built was duplicated. The two were given the same name. We kept even the work people in ignorance. The flying ships are safe. They are up in Ulensk. Now I shall send a cable. The four battleships which have been launched must steam away northward. The four that are ready to be launched under the same name must take their place. Everybody will believe that it is the same ships returned. I am not afraid. There are American spies in Tokyo, but our secret harbours have never been visited.”

“Go and send your cable and come back again,” Blunn directed, “Warn your people that without a doubt investigations will be made. Let your fleet be manoeuvred in every way so as to confuse undesired onlookers. But remember, nothing must interfere with its final assembly. You know the date.”

Itash smiled for the first time.

“On November the first,” he said, “we have the most complete and wonderful plan of movement. Units of the fleet will appear from all sorts of unexpected places. They have their final meeting place only five days’ steaming from San Francisco.”

Blunn nodded.

“Go and send your cables,” he ordered. “Then return here. I suppose you can rely upon your code?”

“My code is undecipherable to any human being except the person to whom it is addressed,” Itash declared. “It is based upon the ancient priests’ language of my country, two thousand years old, and untranslatable save by a Japanese scholar. That again is coded and has never left my person.”

He opened his coat and waistcoat and showed a band around his underclothes. Blunn waved him away.

“Good!” he approved. “Be back within two hours. You will not sleep before then!”

For a few moments after the departure of Itash, Cornelius Blunn sat motionless in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the calendar which stood on his table. Finally he rose to his feet, opened the door and called to his secretary.

“Miss Herman,” he enjoined, “for half an hour I am engaged. You understand? Not even a telephone message.”

“I understand perfectly, sir,” she replied. “It is as usual.” She returned to her place. Blunn re-entered his sitting room, carefully locking the door behind him. The apartment, before the changes necessitated by his demands, had been an ordinary hotel sitting room, with heavy plush furniture and curtains. There were two windows, across which he carefully drew the curtains until every scrap of daylight was excluded. He then turned on the electric light and made his way to the ponderous safe, which looked as though it were built into the further wall. He undid his coat and waistcoat and released the chain which was wound around his body. At the end of it were two keys. With one, after a few minutes’ adjustment, he opened the safe. From underneath a pile of papers he drew out a curiously shaped and heavy box fashioned of beaten gold. On the left-hand side of the lid were the arms of the city of Berlin. On the right the arms of the Hohenzollerns. In the middle was an inscription in German:

To Cornelius Blunn, the faithful servant of this city and friend of his Kaiser.

WILHELM.

Nineteen-thirteen.

Blunn closed the door of the café and returned to his place at the desk, carrying the box with him. He lit the electric lamp which stood upon the table and, with the other key, unlocked the casket. Its contents were simple enough in appearance—two small morocco-bound volumes resembling diaries at the top and a few sheets of parchment on which were several great seals; underneath a letter, yellow with age, crumpled a little at the corners, and showing signs of slight tear in one of the folds. With careful fingers Cornelius Blunn spread the latter out on the table before him. At either end he placed a small paperweight. Then he folded his hands and read its contents to himself in a very low undertone. The roar of the city seemed muffled by the closely drawn curtains. One thought of a dark and silent mosque in the middle of a sunlit Oriental city. Here was a man at his devotions,—and this was what he read:

My Beloved Son,

I write you this message from my deathbed with the last fragment of strength with which an inscrutable Providence has endowed me. I go before my work is accomplished, and, for that reason, a heavier burden must rest upon your shoulders. You will bear it worthily because of the purpose. My son, the chosen people of God were often called upon to face suffering—aye, and humiliation. But in the end they triumphed. Greatness will always survive, and the greatest thing upon this earth is the soul of the German people.

Have nothing to do, Cornelius, with those who would write her apologia. The empires of the world were built up with blood and sacrifice, and the knowledge of these things was in our hearts,—we, who............