1
On the mountain-side above the town of Brissago and commanding two long stretches of Lake Maggiore, looking eastward1 to Bellinzona, and southward to Luino, there is a shelf of grass meadows which is very beautiful in springtime with a great multitude of wild flowers. More particularly is this so in early June, when the slender asphodel Saint Bruno’s lily, with its spike2 of white blossom, is in flower. To the westward3 of this delightful4 shelf there is a deep and densely5 wooded trench6, a great gulf7 of blue some mile or so in width out of which arise great precipices9 very high and wild. Above the asphodel fields the mountains climb in rocky slopes to solitudes10 of stone and sunlight that curve round and join that wall of cliffs in one common skyline. This desolate11 and austere12 background contrasts very vividly13 with the glowing serenity14 of the great lake below, with the spacious15 view of fertile hills and roads and villages and islands to south and east, and with the hotly golden rice flats of the Val Maggia to the north. And because it was a remote and insignificant16 place, far away out of the crowding tragedies of that year of disaster, away from burning cities and starving multitudes, bracing17 and tranquillising and hidden, it was here that there gathered the conference of rulers that was to arrest, if possible, before it was too late, the debacle of civilisation18. Here, brought together by the indefatigable19 energy of that impassioned humanitarian20, Leblanc, the French ambassador at Washington, the chief Powers of the world were to meet in a last desperate conference to ‘save humanity.’
Leblanc was one of those ingenuous21 men whose lot would have been insignificant in any period of security, but who have been caught up to an immortal22 role in history by the sudden simplification of human affairs through some tragical23 crisis, to the measure of their simplicity24. Such a man was Abraham Lincoln, and such was Garibaldi. And Leblanc, with his transparent25 childish innocence26, his entire self-forgetfulness, came into this confusion of distrust and intricate disaster with an invincible27 appeal for the manifest sanities of the situation. His voice, when he spoke28, was ‘full of remonstrance30.’ He was a little bald, spectacled man, inspired by that intellectual idealism which has been one of the peculiar31 gifts of France to humanity. He was possessed32 of one clear persuasion33, that war must end, and that the only way to end war was to have but one government for mankind. He brushed aside all other considerations. At the very outbreak of the war, so soon as the two capitals of the belligerents35 had been wrecked36, he went to the president in the White House with this proposal. He made it as if it was a matter of course. He was fortunate to be in Washington and in touch with that gigantic childishness which was the characteristic of the American imagination. For the Americans also were among the simple peoples by whom the world was saved. He won over the American president and the American government to his general ideas; at any rate they supported him sufficiently37 to give him a standing38 with the more sceptical European governments, and with this backing he set to work — it seemed the most fantastic of enterprises — to bring together all the rulers of the world and unify39 them. He wrote innumerable letters, he sent messages, he went desperate journeys, he enlisted40 whatever support he could find; no one was too humble41 for an ally or too obstinate42 for his advances; through the terrible autumn of the last wars this persistent43 little visionary in spectacles must have seemed rather like a hopeful canary twittering during a thunderstorm. And no accumulation of disasters daunted44 his conviction that they could be ended.
For the whole world was flaring45 then into a monstrous46 phase of destruction. Power after Power about the armed globe sought to anticipate attack by aggression47. They went to war in a delirium48 of panic, in order to use their bombs first. China and Japan had assailed49 Russia and destroyed Moscow, the United States had attacked Japan, India was in anarchistic50 revolt with Delhi a pit of fire spouting51 death and flame; the redoubtable52 King of the Balkans was mobilising. It must have seemed plain at last to every one in those days that the world was slipping headlong to anarchy53. By the spring of 1959 from nearly two hundred centres, and every week added to their number, roared the unquenchable crimson54 conflagrations56 of the atomic bombs, the flimsy fabric57 of the world’s credit had vanished, industry was completely disorganised and every city, every thickly populated area was starving or trembled on the verge58 of starvation. Most of the capital cities of the world were burning; millions of people had already perished, and over great areas government was at an end. Humanity has been compared by one contemporary writer to a sleeper59 who handles matches in his sleep and wakes to find himself in flames.
For many months it was an open question whether there was to be found throughout all the race the will and intelligence to face these new conditions and make even an attempt to arrest the downfall of the social order. For a time the war spirit defeated every effort to rally the forces of preservation60 and construction. Leblanc seemed to be protesting against earthquakes, and as likely to find a spirit of reason in the crater61 of Etna. Even though the shattered official governments now clamoured for peace, bands of irreconcilables and invincible patriots62, usurpers, adventurers, and political desperadoes, were everywhere in possession of the simple apparatus64 for the disengagement of atomic energy and the initiation65 of new centres of destruction. The stuff exercised an irresistible66 fascination67 upon a certain type of mind. Why should any one give in while he can still destroy his enemies? Surrender? While there is still a chance of blowing them to dust? The power of destruction which had once been the ultimate privilege of government was now the only power left in the world — and it was everywhere. There were few thoughtful men during that phase of blazing waste who did not pass through such moods of despair as Barnet describes, and declare with him: ‘This is the end. . . . ’
And all the while Leblanc was going to and fro with glittering glasses and an inexhaustible persuasiveness68, urging the manifest reasonableness of his view upon ears that ceased presently to be inattentive. Never at any time did he betray a doubt that all this chaotic69 conflict would end. No nurse during a nursery uproar70 was ever so certain of the inevitable71 ultimate peace. From being treated as an amiable72 dreamer he came by insensible degrees to be regarded as an extravagant73 possibility. Then he began to seem even practicable. The people who listened to him in 1958 with a smiling impatience74, were eager before 1959 was four months old to know just exactly what he thought might be done. He answered with the patience of a philosopher and the lucidity75 of a Frenchman. He began to receive responses of a more and more hopeful type. He came across the Atlantic to Italy, and there he gathered in the promises for this congress. He chose those high meadows above Brissago for the reasons we have stated. ‘We must get away,’ he said, ‘from old associations.’ He set to work requisitioning material for his conference with an assurance that was justified76 by the replies. With a slight incredulity the conference which was to begin a new order in the world, gathered itself together. Leblanc summoned it without arrogance77, he controlled it by virtue78 of an infinite humility79. Men appeared upon those upland slopes with the apparatus for wireless80 telegraphy; others followed with tents and provisions; a little cable was flung down to a convenient point upon the Locarno road below. Leblanc arrived, sedulously81 directing every detail that would affect the tone of the assembly. He might have been a courier in advance rather than the originator of the gathering82. And then there arrived, some by the cable, most by aeroplane, a few in other fashions, the men who had been called together to confer upon the state of the world. It was to be a conference without a name. Nine monarchs83, the presidents of four republics, a number of ministers and ambassadors, powerful journalists, and such-like prominent and influential85 men, took part in it. There were even scientific men; and that world-famous old man, Holsten, came with the others to contribute his amateur statecraft to the desperate problem of the age. Only Leblanc would have dared so to summon figure heads and powers and intelligence, or have had the courage to hope for their agreement. . . .
2
And one at least of those who were called to this conference of governments came to it on foot. This was King Egbert, the young king of the most venerable kingdom in Europe. He was a rebel, and had always been of deliberate choice a rebel against the magnificence of his position. He affected86 long pedestrian tours and a disposition87 to sleep in the open air. He came now over the Pass of Sta Maria Maggiore and by boat up the lake to Brissago; thence he walked up the mountain, a pleasant path set with oaks and sweet chestnut88. For provision on the walk, for he did not want to hurry, he carried with him a pocketful of bread and cheese. A certain small retinue89 that was necessary to his comfort and dignity upon occasions of state he sent on by the cable car, and with him walked his private secretary, Firmin, a man who had thrown up the Professorship of World Politics in the London School of Sociology, Economics, and Political Science, to take up these duties. Firmin was a man of strong rather than rapid thought, he had anticipated great influence in this new position, and after some years he was still only beginning to apprehend90 how largely his function was to listen. Originally he had been something of a thinker upon international politics, an authority upon tariffs91 and strategy, and a valued contributor to various of the higher organs of public opinion, but the atomic bombs had taken him by surprise, and he had still to recover completely from his pre-atomic opinions and the silencing effect of those sustained explosives.
The king’s freedom from the trammels of etiquette92 was very complete. In theory — and he abounded93 in theory — his manners were purely94 democratic. It was by sheer habit and inadvertency that he permitted Firmin, who had discovered a rucksack in a small shop in the town below, to carry both bottles of beer. The king had never, as a matter of fact, carried anything for himself in his life, and he had never noted95 that he did not do so.
‘We will have nobody with us,’ he said, ‘at all. We will be perfectly96 simple.’
So Firmin carried the beer.
As they walked up — it was the king made the pace rather than Firmin — they talked of the conference before them, and Firmin, with a certain want of assurance that would have surprised him in himself in the days of his Professorship, sought to define the policy of his companion. ‘In its broader form, sir,’ said Firmin; ‘I admit a certain plausibility97 in this project of Leblanc’s, but I feel that although it may be advisable to set up some sort of general control for International affairs — a sort of Hague Court with extended powers — that is no reason whatever for losing sight of the principles of national and imperial autonomy.’
‘Firmin,’ said the king, ‘I am going to set my brother kings a good example.’
Firmin intimated a curiosity that veiled a dread98.
‘By chucking all that nonsense,’ said the king.
He quickened his pace as Firmin, who was already a little out of breath, betrayed a disposition to reply.
‘I am going to chuck all that nonsense,’ said the king, as Firmin prepared to speak. ‘I am going to fling my royalty99 and empire on the table — and declare at once I don’t mean to haggle100. It’s haggling101 — about rights — has been the devil in human affairs, for — always. I am going to stop this nonsense.’
Firmin halted abruptly102. ‘But, sir!’ he cried.
The king stopped six yards ahead of him and looked back at his adviser103’s perspiring104 visage.
‘Do you really think, Firmin, that I am here as — as an infernal politician to put my crown and my flag and my claims and so forth105 in the way of peace? That little Frenchman is right. You know he is right as well as I do. Those things are over. We — we kings and rulers and representatives have been at the very heart of the mischief106. Of course we imply separation, and of course separation means the threat of war, and of course the threat of war means the accumulation of more and more atomic bombs. The old game’s up. But, I say, we mustn’t stand here, you know. The world waits. Don’t you think the old game’s up, Firmin?’
Firmin adjusted a strap107, passed a hand over his wet forehead, and followed earnestly. ‘I admit, sir,’ he said to a receding108 back, ‘that there has to be some sort of hegemony, some sort of Amphictyonic council ——’
‘There’s got to be one simple government for all the world,’ said the king over his shoulder.
‘But as for a reckless, unqualified abandonment, sir ——’
‘BANG!’ cried the king.
Firmin made no answer to this interruption. But a faint shadow of annoyance109 passed across his heated features.
‘Yesterday,’ said the king, by way of explanation, ‘the Japanese very nearly got San Francisco.’
‘I hadn’t heard, sir.’
‘The Americans ran the Japanese aeroplane down into the sea and there the bomb got busted110.’
‘Under the sea, sir?’
‘Yes. Submarine volcano. The steam is in sight of the Californian coast. It was as near as that. And with things like this happening, you want me to go up this hill and haggle. Consider the effect of that upon my imperial cousin — and all the others!’
‘HE will haggle, sir.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ said the king.
‘But, sir.’
‘Leblanc won’t let him.’
Firmin halted abruptly and gave a vicious pull at the offending strap. ‘Sir, he will listen to his advisers111,’ he said, in a tone that in some subtle way seemed to implicate112 his master with the trouble of the knapsack.
The king considered him.
‘We will go just a little higher,’ he said. ‘I want to find this unoccupied village they spoke of, and then we will drink that beer. It can’t be far. We will drink the beer and throw away the bottles. And then, Firmin, I shall ask you to look at things in a more generous light. . . . Because, you know, you must. . . . ’
He turned about and for some time the only sound they made was the noise of their boots upon the loose stones of the way and the irregular breathing of Firmin.
At length, as it seemed to Firmin, or quite soon, as it seemed to the king, the gradient of the path diminished, the way widened out, and they found themselves in a very beautiful place indeed. It was one of those upland clusters of sheds and houses that are still to be found in the mountains of North Italy, buildings that were used only in the high summer, and which it was the custom to leave locked up and deserted114 through all the winter and spring, and up to the middle of June. The buildings were of a soft-toned gray stone, buried in rich green grass, shadowed by chestnut trees and lit by an extraordinary blaze of yellow broom. Never had the king seen broom so glorious; he shouted at the light of it, for it seemed to give out more sunlight even than it received; he sat down impulsively115 on a lichenous116 stone, tugged117 out his bread and cheese, and bade Firmin thrust the beer into the shaded weeds to cool.
‘The things people miss, Firmin,’ he said, ‘who go up into the air in ships!’
Firmin looked around him with an ungenial eye. ‘You see it at its best, sir,’ he said, ‘before the peasants come here again and make it filthy118.’
‘It would be beautiful anyhow,’ said the king.
‘Superficially, sir,’ said Firmin. ‘But it stands for a social order that is fast vanishing away. Indeed, judging by the grass between the stones and in the huts, I am inclined to doubt if it is in use even now.’
‘I suppose,’ said the king, ‘they would come up immediately the hay on this flower meadow is cut. It would be those slow, creamy-coloured beasts, I expect, one sees on the roads below, and swarthy girls with red handkerchiefs over their black hair. . . . It is wonderful to think how long that beautiful old life lasted. In the Roman times and long ages before ever the rumour119 of the Romans had come into these parts, men drove their cattle up into these places as the summer came on. . . . How haunted is this place! There have been quarrels here, hopes, children have played here and lived to be old crones and old gaffers, and died, and so it has gone on for thousands of lives. Lovers, innumerable lovers, have caressed120 amidst this golden broom. . . . ’
He meditated121 over a busy mouthful of bread and cheese.
‘We ought to have brought a tankard for that beer,’ he said.
Firmin produced a folding aluminium122 cup, and the king was pleased to drink.
‘I wish, sir,’ said Firmin suddenly, ‘I could induce you at least to delay your decision ——’
‘It’s no good talking, Firmin,’ said the king. ‘My mind’s as clear as daylight.’
‘Sire,’ protested Firmin, with his voice full of bread and cheese and genuine emotion, ‘have you no respect for your kingship?’
The king paused before he answered with unwonted gravity. ‘It’s just because I have, Firmin, that I won’t be a puppet in this game of international politics.’ He regarded his companion for a moment and then remarked: ‘Kingship! — what do YOU know of kingship, Firmin?
‘Yes,’ cried the king to his astonished counsellor. ‘For the first time in my life I am going to be a king. I am going to lead, and lead by my own authority. For a dozen generations my family has been a set of dummies123 in the hands of their advisers. Advisers! Now I am going to be a real king — and I am going to — to abolish, dispose of, finish, the crown to which I have been a slave. But what a world of paralysing shams125 this roaring stuff has ended! The rigid126 old world is in the melting-pot again, and I, who seemed to be no more than the stuffing inside a regal robe, I am a king among kings. I have to play my part at the head of things and put an end to blood and fire and idiot disorder127.’
‘But, sir,’ protested Firmin.
‘This man Leblanc is right. The whole world has got to be a Republic, one and indivisible. You know that, and my duty is to make that easy. A king should lead his people; you want me to stick on their backs like some Old Man of the Sea. To-day must be a sacrament of kings. Our trust for mankind is done with and ended. We must part our robes among them, we must part our kingship among them, and say to them all, now the king in every one must rule the world. . . . Have you no sense of the magnificence of this occasion? You want me, Firmin, you want me to go up there and haggle like a damned little solicitor128 for some price, some compensation, some qualification. . . . ’
Firmin shrugged129 his shoulders and assumed an expression of despair. Meanwhile, he conveyed, one must eat.
For a time neither spoke, and the king ate and turned over in his mind the phrases of the speech he intended to make to the conference. By virtue of the antiquity130 of his crown he was to preside, and he intended to make his presidency131 memorable132. Reassured133 of his eloquence134, he considered the despondent135 and sulky Firmin for a space.
‘Firmin,’ he said, ‘you have idealised kingship.’ ‘It has been my dream, sir,’ said Firmin sorrowfully, ‘to serve.’
‘At the levers, Firmin,’ said the king.
‘You are pleased to be unjust,’ said Firmin, deeply hurt.
‘I am pleased to be getting out of it,’ said the king.
‘Oh, Firmin,’ he went on, ‘have you no thought for me? Will you never realise that I am not only flesh and blood but an imagination — with its rights. I am a king in revolt against that fetter136 they put upon my head. I am a king awake. My reverend grandparents never in all their august lives had a waking moment. They loved the job that you, you advisers, gave them; they never had a doubt of it. It was like giving a doll to a woman who ought to have a child. They delighted in processions and opening things and being read addresses to, and visiting triplets and nonagenarians and all that sort of thing. Incredibly. They used to keep albums of cuttings from all the illustrated137 papers showing them at it, and if the press-cutting parcels grew thin they were worried. It was all that ever worried them. But there is something atavistic in me; I hark back to unconstitutional monarchs. They christened me too retrogressively, I think. I wanted to get things done. I was bored. I might have fallen into vice138, most intelligent and energetic princes do, but the palace precautions were unusually thorough. I was brought up in the purest court the world has ever seen. . . . Alertly pure. . . . So I read books, Firmin, and went about asking questions. The thing was bound to happen to one of us sooner or later. Perhaps, too, very likely I’m not vicious. I don’t think I am.’
He reflected. ‘No,’ he said.
Firmin cleared his throat. ‘I don’t think you are, sir,’ he said. ‘You prefer ——’
He stopped short. He had been going to say ‘talking.’ He substituted ‘ideas.’
‘That world of royalty!’ the king went on. ‘In a little while no one will understand it any more. It will become a riddle139. . . .
‘Among other things, it was a world of perpetual best clothes. Everything was in its best clothes for us, and usually wearing bunting. With a cinema watching to see we took it properly. If you are a king, Firmin, and you go and look at a regiment140, it instantly stops whatever it is doing, changes into full uniform and presents arms. When my august parents went in a train the coal in the tender used to be whitened. It did, Firmin, and if coal had been white instead of black I have no doubt the authorities would have blackened it. That was the spirit of our treatment. People were always walking about with their faces to us. One never saw anything in profile. One got an impression of a world that was insanely focused on ourselves. And when I began to poke29 my little questions into the Lord Chancellor141 and the archbishop and all the rest of them, about what I should see if people turned round, the general effect I produced was that I wasn’t by any means displaying the Royal Tact142 they had expected of me. . . . ’
He meditated for a time.
‘And yet, you know, there is something in the kingship, Firmin. It stiffened143 up my august little grandfather. It gave my grandmother a kind of awkward dignity even when she was cross — and she was very often cross. They both had a profound sense of responsibility. My poor father’s health was wretched during his brief career; nobody outside the circle knows just how he screwed himself up to things. “My people expect it,” he used to say of this tiresome144 duty or that. Most of the things they made him do were silly — it was part of a bad tradition, but there was nothing silly in the way he set about them. . . . The spirit of kingship is a fine thing, Firmin; I feel it in my bones; I do not know what I might not be if I were not a king. I could die for my people, Firmin, and you couldn’t. No, don’t say you could die for me, because I know better. Don’t think I forget my kingship, Firmin, don’t imagine that. I am a king, a kingly king, by right divine. The fact that I am also a chattering145 young man makes not the slightest difference to that. But the proper text-book for kings, Firmin, is none of the court memoirs146 and Welt-Politik books you would have me read; it is old Fraser’s Golden Bough147. Have you read that, Firmin?’
Firmin had. ‘Those were the authentic148 kings. In the end they were cut up and a bit given to everybody. They sprinkled the nations — with Kingship.’
Firmin turned himself round and faced his royal master.
‘What do you intend to do, sir?’ he asked. ‘If you will not listen to me, what do you propose to do this afternoon?’
The king flicked149 crumbs150 from his coat.
‘Manifestly war has to stop for ever, Firmin. Manifestly this can only be done by putting all the world under one government. Our crowns and flags are in the way. Manifestly they must go.’
‘Yes, sir,’ interrupted Firmin, ‘but WHAT government? I don’t see what government you get by a universal abdication151!’
‘Well,’ said the king, with his hands about his knees, ‘WE shall be the government.’
‘The conference?’ exclaimed Firmin.
‘Who else?’ asked the king simply.
‘It’s perfectly simple,’ he added to Firmin’s tremendous silence.
‘But,’ cried Firmin, ‘you must have sanctions! Will there be no form of election, for example?’
‘Why should there be?’ asked the king, with intelligent curiosity.
‘The consent of the governed.’
‘Firmin, we are just going to lay down our differences and take over government. Without any election at all. Without any sanction. The governed will show their consent by silence. If any effective opposition152 arises we shall ask it to come in and help. The true sanction of kingship is the grip upon the sceptre. We aren’t going to worry people to vote for us. I’m certain the mass of men does not want to be bothered with such things. . . . We’ll contrive153 a way for any one interested to join in. That’s quite enough in the way of democracy. Perhaps later — when things don’t matter. . . . We shall govern all right, Firmin. Government only becomes difficult when the lawyers get hold of it, and since these troubles began the lawyers are shy. Indeed, come to think of it, I wonder where all the lawyers are. . . . Where are they? A lot, of course, were bagged, some of the worst ones, when they blew up my legislature. You never knew the late Lord Chancellor . . . .
‘Necessities bury rights. And create them. Lawyers live on dead rights disinterred. . . . We’ve done with that way of living. We won’t have more law than a code can cover and beyond that government will be free. . . .
‘Before the sun sets to-day, Firmin, trust me, we shall have made our abdications, all of us, and declared the World Republic, supreme154 and indivisible. I wonder what my august grandmother would have made of it! All my rights! . . . And then we shall go on governing. What else is there to do? All over the world we shall declare that there is no longer mine or thine, but ours. China, the United States, two-thirds of Europe, will certainly fall in and obey. They will have to do so. What else can they do? Their official rulers are here with us. They won’t be able to get together any sort of idea of not obeying us. . . . Then we shall declare that every sort of property is held in trust for the Republic. . . . ’
‘But, sir!’ cried Firmin, suddenly enlightened. ‘Has this been arranged already?’
‘My dear Firmin, do you think we have come here, all of us, to talk at large? The talking has been done for half a century. Talking and writing. We are here to set the new thing, the simple, obvious, necessary thing, going.’
He stood up.
Firmin, forgetting the habits of a score of years, remained seated.
‘WELL,’ he said at last. ‘And I have known nothing!’
The king smiled very cheerfully. He liked these talks with Firmin.
3
That conference upon the Brissago meadows was one of the most heterogeneous155 collections of prominent people that has ever met together. Principalities and powers, stripped and shattered until all their pride and mystery were gone, met in a marvellous new humility. Here were kings and emperors whose capitals were lakes of flaming destruction, statesmen whose countries had become chaos156, scared politicians and financial potentates157. Here were leaders of thought and learned investigators158 dragged reluctantly to the control of affairs. Altogether there were ninety-three of them, Leblanc’s conception of the head men of the world. They had all come to the realisation of the simple truths that the indefatigable Leblanc had hammered into them; and, drawing his resources from the King of Italy, he had provisioned his conference with a generous simplicity quite in accordance with the rest of his character, and so at last was able to make his astonishing and entirely160 rational appeal. He had appointed King Egbert the president, he believed in this young man so firmly that he completely dominated him, and he spoke himself as a secretary might speak from the president’s left hand, and evidently did not realise himself that he was telling them all exactly what they had to do. He imagined he was merely recapitulating162 the obvious features of the situation for their convenience. He was dressed in ill-fitting white silk clothes, and he consulted a dingy163 little packet of notes as he spoke. They put him out. He explained that he had never spoken from notes before, but that this occasion was exceptional.
And then King Egbert spoke as he was expected to speak, and Leblanc’s spectacles moistened at that flow of generous sentiment, most amiably164 and lightly expressed. ‘We haven’t to stand on ceremony,’ said the king, ‘we have to govern the world. We have always pretended to govern the world and here is our opportunity.’
‘Of course,’ whispered Leblanc, nodding his head rapidly, ‘of course.’
‘The world has been smashed up, and we have to put it on its wheels again,’ said King Egbert. ‘And it is the simple common sense of this crisis for all to help and none to seek advantage. Is that our tone or not?’
The gathering was too old and seasoned and miscellaneous for any great displays of enthusiasm, but that was its tone, and with an astonishment166 that somehow became exhilarating it began to resign, repudiate167, and declare its intentions. Firmin, taking notes behind his master, heard everything that had been foretold168 among the yellow broom, come true. With a queer feeling that he was dreaming, he assisted at the proclamation of the World State, and saw the message taken out to the wireless operators to be throbbed169 all round the habitable globe. ‘And next,’ said King Egbert, with a cheerful excitement in his voice, ‘we have to get every atom of Carolinum and all the plant for making it, into our control. . . . ’
Firman was not alone in his incredulity. Not a man there who was not a very amiable, reasonable, benevolent170 creature at bottom; some had been born to power and some had happened upon it, some had struggled to get it, not clearly knowing what it was and what it implied, but none was irreconcilably171 set upon its retention172 at the price of cosmic disaster. Their minds had been prepared by circumstances and sedulously cultivated by Leblanc; and now they took the broad obvious road along which King Egbert was leading them, with a mingled173 conviction of strangeness and necessity. Things went very smoothly174; the King of Italy explained the arrangements that had been made for the protection of the camp from any fantastic attack; a couple of thousand of aeroplanes, each carrying a sharpshooter, guarded them, and there was an excellent system of relays, and at night all the sky would be searched by scores of lights, and the admirable Leblanc gave luminous175 reasons for their camping just where they were and going on with their administrative176 duties forthwith. He knew of this place, because he had happened upon it when holiday-making with Madame Leblanc twenty years and more ago. ‘There is very simple fare at present,’ he explained, ‘on account of the disturbed state of the countries about us. But we have excellent fresh milk, good red wine, beef, bread, salad, and lemons. . . . In a few days I hope to place things in the hands of a more efficient caterer177. . . . ’
The members of the new world government dined at three long tables on trestles, and down the middle of these tables Leblanc, in spite of the barrenness of his menu, had contrived178 to have a great multitude of beautiful roses. There was similar accommodation for the secretaries and attendants at a lower level down the mountain. The assembly dined as it had debated, in the open air, and over the dark crags to the west the glowing June sunset shone upon the banquet. There was no precedency now among the ninety-three, and King Egbert found himself between a pleasant little Japanese stranger in spectacles and his cousin of Central Europe, and opposite a great Bengali leader and the President of the United States of America. Beyond the Japanese was Holsten, the old chemist, and Leblanc was a little way down the other side.
The king was still cheerfully talkative and abounded in ideas. He fell presently into an amiable controversy179 with the American, who seemed to feel a lack of impressiveness in the occasion.
It was ever the Transatlantic tendency, due, no doubt, to the necessity of handling public questions in a bulky and striking manner, to over-emphasise and over-accentuate, and the president was touched by his national failing. He suggested now that there should be a new era, starting from that day as the first day of the first year.
The king demurred180.
‘From this day forth, sir, man enters upon his heritage,’ said the American.
‘Man,’ said the king, ‘is always entering upon his heritage. You Americans have a peculiar weakness for anniversaries — if you will forgive me saying so. Yes — I accuse you of a lust113 for dramatic effect. Everything is happening always, but you want to say this or this is the real instant in time and subordinate all the others to it.’
The American said something about an epoch181-making day.
‘But surely,’ said the king, ‘you don’t want us to condemn182 all humanity to a world-wide annual Fourth of July for ever and ever more. On account of this harmless necessary day of declarations. No conceivable day could ever deserve that. Ah! you do not know, as I do, the devastations of the memorable. My poor grandparents were — RUBRICATED. The worst of these huge celebrations is that they break up the dignified183 succession of one’s contemporary emotions. They interrupt. They set back. Suddenly out come the flags and fireworks, and the old enthusiasms are furbished up — and it’s sheer destruction of the proper thing that ought to be going on. Sufficient unto the day is the celebration thereof. Let the dead past bury its dead. You see, in regard to the calendar, I am for democracy and you are for aristocracy. All things I hold, are august, and have a right to be lived through on their merits. No day should be sacrificed on the grave of departed events. What do you think of it, Wilhelm?’
‘For the noble, yes, all days should be noble.’
‘Exactly my position,’ said the king, and felt pleased at what he had been saying.
And then, since the American pressed his idea, the king contrived to shift the talk from the question of celebrating the epoch they were making to the question of the probabilities that lay ahead. Here every one became diffident. They could see the world unified184 and at peace, but what detail was to follow from that unification they seemed indisposed to discuss. This diffidence struck the king as remarkable185. He plunged187 upon the possibilities of science. All the huge expenditure188 that had hitherto gone into unproductive naval189 and military preparations, must now, he declared, place research upon a new footing. ‘Where one man worked we will have a thousand.’ He appealed to Holsten. ‘We have only begun to peep into these possibilities,’ he said. ‘You at any rate have sounded the vaults190 of the treasure house.’
‘They are unfathomable,’ smiled Holsten.
‘Man,’ said the American, with a manifest resolve to justify191 and reinstate himself after the flickering192 contradictions of the king, ‘Man, I say, is only beginning to enter upon his heritage.’
‘Tell us some of the things you believe we shall presently learn, give us an idea of the things we may presently do,’ said the king to Holsten.
Holsten opened out the vistas193. . . .
‘Science,’ the king cried presently, ‘is the new king of the world.’
‘OUR view,’ said the president, ‘is that sovereignty resides with the people.’
‘No!’ said the king, ‘the sovereign is a being more subtle than that. And less arithmetical. Neither my family nor your emancipated194 people. It is something that floats about us, and above us, and through us. It is that common impersonal195 will and sense of necessity of which Science is the best understood and most typical aspect. It is the mind of the race. It is that which has brought us here, which has bowed us all to its demands. . . . ’
He paused and glanced down the table at Leblanc, and then re-opened at his former antagonist196.
‘There is a disposition,’ said the king, ‘to regard this gathering as if it were actually doing what it appears to be doing, as if we ninety-odd men of our own free will and wisdom were unifying197 the world. There is a temptation to consider ourselves exceptionally fine fellows, and masterful men, and all the rest of it. We are not. I doubt if we should average out as anything abler than any other casually198 selected body of ninety-odd men. We are no creators, we are consequences, we are salvagers — or salvagees. The thing to-day is not ourselves but the wind of conviction that has blown us hither. . . . ’
The American had to confess he could hardly agree with the king’s estimate of their average.
‘Holster, perhaps, and one or two others, might lift us a little,’ the king conceded. ‘But the rest of us?’
His eyes flitted once more towards Leblanc.
‘Look at Leblanc,’ he said. ‘He’s just a simple soul. There are hundreds and thousands like him. I admit, a certain dexterity199, a certain lucidity, but there is not a country town in France where there is not a Leblanc or so to be found about two o’clock in its principal cafe. It’s just that he isn’t complicated or Super-Mannish, or any of those things that has made all he has done possible. But in happier times, don’t you think, Wilhelm, he would have remained just what his father was, a successful epicier, very clean, very accurate, very honest. And on holidays he would have gone out with Madame Leblanc and her knitting in a punt with a jar of something gentle and have sat under a large reasonable green-lined umbrella and fished very neatly200 and successfully for gudgeon. . . . ’
The president and the Japanese prince in spectacles protested together.
‘If I do him an injustice,’ said the king, ‘it is only because I want to elucidate201 my argument. I want to make it clear how small are men and days, and how great is man in comparison. . . . ’
4
So it was King Egbert talked at Brissago after they had proclaimed the unity165 of the world. Every evening after that the assembly dined together and talked at their ease and grew accustomed to each other and sharpened each other’s ideas, and every day they worked together, and really for a time believed that they were inventing a new government for the world. They discussed a constitution. But there were matters needing attention too urgently to wait for any constitution. They attended to these incidentally. The constitution it was that waited. It was presently found convenient to keep the constitution waiting indefinitely as King Egbert had foreseen, and meanwhile, with an increasing self-confidence, that council went on governing. . . .
On this first evening of all the council’s gatherings202, after King Egbert had talked for a long time and drunken and praised very abundantly the simple red wine of the country that Leblanc had procured203 for them, he fathered about him a group of congenial spirits and fell into a discourse204 upon simplicity, praising it above all things and declaring that the ultimate aim of art, religion, philosophy, and science alike was to simplify. He instanced himself as a devotee to simplicity. And Leblanc he instanced as a crowning instance of the splendour of this quality. Upon that they all agreed.
When at last the company about the tables broke up, the king found himself brimming over with a peculiar affection and admiration205 for Leblanc, he made his way to him and drew him aside and broached206 what he declared was a small matter. There was, he said, a certain order in his gift that, unlike all other orders and decorations in the world, had never been corrupted207. It was reserved for elderly men of supreme distinction, the acuteness of whose gifts was already touched to mellowness208, and it had included the greatest names of every age so far as the advisers of his family had been able to ascertain209 them. At present, the king admitted, these matters of stars and badges were rather obscured by more urgent affairs, for his own part he had never set any value upon them at all, but a time might come when they would be at least interesting, and in short he wished to confer the Order of Merit upon Leblanc. His sole motive210 in doing so, he added, was his strong desire to signalise his personal esteem211. He laid his hand upon the Frenchman’s shoulder as he said these things, with an almost brotherly affection. Leblanc received this proposal with a modest confusion that greatly enhanced the king’s opinion of his admirable simplicity. He pointed161 out that eager as he was to snatch at the proffered212 distinction, it might at the present stage appear invidious, and he therefore suggested that the conferring of it should be postponed213 until it could be made the crown and conclusion of his services. The king was unable to shake this resolution, and the two men parted with expressions of mutual214 esteem.
The king then summoned Firmin in order to make a short note of a number of things that he had said during the day. But after about twenty minutes’ work the sweet sleepiness of the mountain air overcame him, and he dismissed Firmin and went to bed and fell asleep at once, and slept with extreme satisfaction. He had had an active, agreeable day.
5
The establishment of the new order that was thus so humanly begun, was, if one measures it by the standard of any preceding age, a rapid progress. The fighting spirit of the world was exhausted215. Only here or there did fierceness linger. For long decades the combative216 side in human affairs had been monstrously217 exaggerated by the accidents of political separation. This now became luminously218 plain. An enormous proportion of the force that sustained armaments had been nothing more aggressive than the fear of war and warlike neighbours. It is doubtful if any large section of the men actually enlisted for fighting ever at any time really hungered and thirsted for bloodshed and danger. That kind of appetite was probably never very strong in the species after the savage219 stage was past. The army was a profession, in which killing220 had become a disagreeable possibility rather than an eventful certainty. If one reads the old newspapers and periodicals of that time, which did so much to keep militarism alive, one finds very little about glory and adventure and a constant harping221 on the disagreeableness of invasion and subjugation222. In one word, militarism was funk. The belligerent34 resolution of the armed Europe of the twentieth century was the resolution of a fiercely frightened sheep to plunge186. And now that its weapons were exploding in its hands, Europe was only too eager to drop them, and abandon this fancied refuge of violence.
For a time the whole world had been shocked into frankness; nearly all the clever people who had hitherto sustained the ancient belligerent separations had now been brought to realise the need for simplicity of attitude and openness of mind; and in this atmosphere of moral renascence, there was little attempt to get negotiable advantages out of resistance to the new order. Human beings are foolish enough no doubt, but few have stopped to haggle in a fire-escape. The council had its way with them. The band of ‘patriots’ who seized the laboratories and arsenal223 just outside Osaka and tried to rouse Japan to revolt against inclusion in the Republic of Mankind, found they had miscalculated the national pride and met the swift vengeance224 of their own countrymen. That fight in the arsenal was a vivid incident in this closing chapter of the history of war. To the last the ‘patriots’ were undecided whether, in the event of a defeat, they would explode their supply of atomic bombs or not. They were fighting with swords outside the iridium doors, and the moderates of their number were at bay and on the verge of destruction, only ten, indeed, remained unwounded, when the republicans burst in to the rescue. . . .
6
One single monarch84 held out against the general acquiescence226 in the new rule, and that was that strange survival of mediaevalism, the ‘Slavic Fox,’ the King of the Balkans. He debated and delayed his submissions227. He showed an extraordinary combination of cunning and temerity229 in his evasion230 of the repeated summonses from Brissago. He affected ill-health and a great preoccupation with his new official mistress, for his semi-barbaric court was arranged on the best romantic models. His tactics were ably seconded by Doctor Pestovitch, his chief minister. Failing to establish his claims to complete independence, King Ferdinand Charles annoyed the conference by a proposal to be treated as a protected state. Finally he professed231 an unconvincing submission228, and put a mass of obstacles in the way of the transfer of his national officials to the new government. In these things he was enthusiastically supported by his subjects, still for the most part an illiterate232 peasantry, passionately233 if confusedly patriotic234, and so far with no practical knowledge of the effect of atomic bombs. More particularly he retained control of all the Balkan aeroplanes.
For once the extreme naivete of Leblanc seems to have been mitigated235 by duplicity. He went on with the general pacification236 of the world as if the Balkan submission was made in absolute good faith, and he announced the disbandment of the force of aeroplanes that hitherto guarded the council at Brissago upon the approaching fifteenth of July. But instead he doubled the number upon duty on that eventful day, and made various arrangements for their disposition. He consulted certain experts, and when he took King Egbert into his confidence there was something in his neat and explicit237 foresight238 that brought back to that ex-monarch’s mind his half-forgotten fantasy of Leblanc as a fisherman under a green umbrella.
About five o’clock in the morning of the seventeenth of July one of the outer sentinels of the Brissago fleet, which was soaring unobtrusively over the lower end of the lake of Garda, sighted and hailed a strange aeroplane that was flying westward, and, failing to get a satisfactory reply, set its wireless apparatus talking and gave chase. A swarm239 of consorts240 appeared very promptly241 over the westward mountains, and before the unknown aeroplane had sighted Como, it had a dozen eager attendants closing in upon it. Its driver seems to have hesitated, dropped down among the mountains, and then turned southward in flight, only to find an intercepting242 biplane sweeping243 across his bows. He then went round into the eye of the rising sun, and passed within a hundred yards of his original pursuer.
The sharpshooter therein opened fire at once, and showed an intelligent grasp of the situation by disabling the passenger first. The man at the wheel must have heard his companion cry out behind him, but he was too intent on getting away to waste even a glance behind. Twice after that he must have heard shots. He let his engine go, he crouched244 down, and for twenty minutes he must have steered245 in the continual expectation of a bullet. It never came, and when at last he glanced round, three great planes were close upon him, and his companion, thrice hit, lay dead across his bombs. His followers246 manifestly did not mean either to upset or shoot him, but inexorably they drove him down, down. At last he was curving and flying a hundred yards or less over the level fields of rice and maize247. Ahead of him and dark against the morning sunrise was a village with a very tall and slender campanile and a line of cable bearing metal standards that he could not clear. He stopped his engine abruptly and dropped flat. He may have hoped to get at the bombs when he came down, but his pitiless pursuers drove right over him and shot him as he fell.
Three other aeroplanes curved down and came to rest amidst grass close by the smashed machine. Their passengers descended248, and ran, holding their light rifles in their hands towards the debris249 and the two dead men. The coffin-shaped box that had occupied the centre of the machine had broken, and three black objects, each with two handles like the ears of a pitcher250, lay peacefully amidst the litter.
These objects were so tremendously important in the eyes of their captors that they disregarded the two dead men who lay bloody251 and broken amidst the wreckage252 as they might have disregarded dead frogs by a country pathway.
‘By God,’ cried the first. ‘Here they are!’
‘And unbroken!’ said the second.
‘I’ve never seen the things before,’ said the first.
‘Bigger than I thought,’ said the second.
The third comer arrived. He stared for a moment at the bombs and then turned his eyes to the dead man with a crushed chest who lay in a muddy place among the green stems under the centre of the machine.
‘One can take no risks,’ he said, with a faint suggestion of apology.
The other two now also turned to the victims. ‘We must signal,’ said the first man. A shadow passed between them and the sun, and they looked up to see the aeroplane that had fired the last shot. ‘Shall we signal?’ came a megaphone hail.
‘Three bombs,’ they answered together.
‘Where do they come from?’ asked the megaphone.
The three sharpshooters looked at each other and then moved towards the dead men. One of them had an idea. ‘Signal that first,’ he said, ‘while we look.’ They were joined by their aviators253 for the search, and all six men began a hunt that was necessarily brutal254 in its haste, for some indication of identity. They examined the men’s pockets, their bloodstained clothes, the machine, the framework. They turned the bodies over and flung them aside. There was not a tattoo255 mark. . . . Everything was elaborately free of any indication of its origin.
‘We can’t find out!’ they called at last.
‘Not a sign?’
‘Not a sign.’
‘I’m coming down,’ said the man overhead. . . .
7
The Slavic fox stood upon a metal balcony in his picturesque256 Art Nouveau palace that gave upon the precipice8 that overhung his bright little capital, and beside him stood Pestovitch, grizzled and cunning, and now full of an ill-suppressed excitement. Behind them the window opened into a large room, richly decorated in aluminium and crimson enamel257, across which the king, as he glanced ever and again over his shoulder with a gesture of inquiry258, could see through the two open doors of a little azure259 walled antechamber the wireless operator in the turret261 working at his incessant262 transcription. Two pompously263 uniformed messengers waited listlessly in this apartment. The room was furnished with a stately dignity, and had in the middle of it a big green baize-covered table with the massive white metal inkpots and antiquated264 sandboxes natural to a new but romantic monarchy265. It was the king’s council chamber260 and about it now, in attitudes of suspended intrigue266, stood the half-dozen ministers who constituted his cabinet. They had been summoned for twelve o’clock, but still at half-past twelve the king loitered in the balcony and seemed to be waiting for some news that did not come.
The king and his minister had talked at first in whispers; they had fallen silent, for they found little now to express except a vague anxiety. Away there on the mountain side were the white metal roofs of the long farm buildings beneath which the bomb factory and the bombs were hidden. (The chemist who had made all these for the king had died suddenly after the declaration of Brissago.) Nobody knew of that store of mischief now but the king and his adviser and three heavily faithful attendants; the aviators who waited now in the midday blaze with their bomb-carrying machines and their passenger bomb-throwers in the exercising grounds of the motor-cyclist barracks below were still in ignorance of the position of the ammunition267 they were presently to take up. It was time they started if the scheme was to work as Pestovitch had planned it. It was a magnificent plan. It aimed at no less than the Empire of the World. The government of idealists and professors away there at Brissago was to be blown to fragments, and then east, west, north, and south those aeroplanes would go swarming268 over a world that had disarmed269 itself, to proclaim Ferdinand Charles, the new Caesar, the Master, Lord of the Earth. It was a magnificent plan. But the tension of this waiting for news of the success of the first blow was — considerable.
The Slavic fox was of a pallid270 fairness, he had a remarkably271 long nose, a thick, short moustache, and small blue eyes that were a little too near together to be pleasant. It was his habit to worry his moustache with short, nervous tugs272 whenever his restless mind troubled him, and now this motion was becoming so incessant that it irked Pestovitch beyond the limits of endurance.
‘I will go,’ said the minister, ‘and see what the trouble is with the wireless. They give us nothing, good or bad.’
Left to himself, the king could worry his moustache without stint273; he leant his elbows forward on the balcony and gave both of his long white hands to the work, so that he looked like a pale dog gnawing274 a bone. Suppose they caught his men, what should he do? Suppose they caught his men?
The clocks in the light gold-capped belfries of the town below presently intimated the half-hour after midday.
Of course, he and Pestovitch had thought it out. Even if they had caught those men, they were pledged to secrecy275. . . . Probably they would be killed in the catching276. . . . One could deny anyhow, deny and deny.
And then he became aware of half a dozen little shining specks277 very high in the blue. . . . Pestovitch came out to him presently. ‘The government messages, sire, have all dropped into cipher,’ he said. ‘I have set a man ——’
‘LOOK!’ interrupted the king, and pointed upward with a long, lean finger.
Pestovitch followed that indication and then glanced for one questioning moment at the white face before him.
‘We have to face it out, sire,’ he said.
For some moments they watched the steep spirals of the descending278 messengers, and then they began a hasty consultation279. . . .
They decided225 that to be holding a council upon the details of an ultimate surrender to Brissago was as innocent-looking a thing as the king could well be doing, and so, when at last the ex-king Egbert, whom the council had sent as its envoy280, arrived upon the scene, he discovered the king almost theatrically281 posed at the head of his councillors in the midst of his court. The door upon the wireless operators was shut.
The ex-king from Brissago came like a draught282 through the curtains and attendants that gave a wide margin283 to King Ferdinand’s state, and the familiar confidence of his manner belied284 a certain hardness in his eye. Firmin trotted285 behind him, and no one else was with him. And as Ferdinand Charles rose to greet him, there came into the heart of the Balkan king again that same chilly286 feeling that he had felt upon the balcony — and it passed at the careless gestures of his guest. For surely any one might outwit this foolish talker who, for a mere159 idea and at the command of a little French rationalist in spectacles, had thrown away the most ancient crown in all the world.
One must deny, deny. . . .
And then slowly and quite tiresomely287 he realised that there was nothing to deny. His visitor, with an amiable ease, went on talking about everything in debate between himself and Brissago except ——.
Could it be that they had been delayed? Could it be that they had had to drop for repairs and were still uncaptured? Could it be that even now while this fool babbled288, they were over there among the mountains heaving their deadly charge over the side of the aeroplane?
Strange hopes began to lift the tail of the Slavic fox again.
What was the man saying? One must talk to him anyhow until one knew. At any moment the little brass289 door behind him might open with the news of Brissago blown to atoms. Then it would be a delightful relief to the present tension to arrest this chatterer forthwith. He might be killed perhaps. What?
The king was repeating his observation. ‘They have a ridiculous fancy that your confidence is based on the possession of atomic bombs.’
King Ferdinand Charles pulled himself together. He protested.
‘Oh, quite so,’ said the ex-king, ‘quite so.’
‘What grounds?’ The ex-king permitted himself a gesture and the ghost of a chuckle290 — why the devil should he chuckle? ‘Practically none,’ he said. ‘But of course with these things one has to be so careful.’
And then again for an instant something — like the faintest shadow of derision — gleamed out of the envoy’s eyes and recalled that chilly feeling to King Ferdinand’s spine291.
Some kindred depression had come to Pestovitch, who had been watching the drawn292 intensity293 of Firmin’s face. He came to the help of his master, who, he feared, might protest too much.
‘A search!’ cried the king. ‘An embargo294 on our aeroplanes.’
‘Only a temporary expedient,’ said the ex-king Egbert, ‘while the search is going on.’
The king appealed to his council.
‘The people will never permit it, sire,’ said a bustling295 little man in a gorgeous uniform.
‘You’ll have to make ’em,’ said the ex-king, genially296 addressing all the councillors.
King Ferdinand glanced at the closed brass door through which no news would come.
‘When would you want to have this search?’
The ex-king was radiant. ‘We couldn’t possibly do it until the day after to-morrow,’ he said.
‘Just the capital?’
‘Where else?’ asked the ex-king, still more cheerfully.
‘For my own part,’ said the ex-king confidentially297, ‘I think the whole business ridiculous. Who would be such a fool as to hide atomic bombs? Nobody. Certain hanging if he’s caught — certain, and almost certain blowing up if he isn’t. But nowadays I have to take orders like the rest of the world. And here I am.’
The king thought he had never met such detestable geniality298. He glanced at Pestovitch, who nodded almost imperceptibly. It was well, anyhow, to have a fool to deal with. They might have sent a diplomatist. ‘Of course,’ said the king, ‘I recognise the overpowering force — and a kind of logic299 — in these orders from Brissago.’
‘I knew you would,’ said the ex-king, with an air of relief, ‘and so let us arrange ——’
They arranged with a certain informality. No Balkan aeroplane was to adventure into the air until the search was concluded, and meanwhile the fleets of the world government would soar and circle in the sky. The towns were to be placarded with offers of reward to any one who would help in the discovery of atomic bombs. . . .
‘You will sign that,’ said the ex-king.
‘Why?’
‘To show that we aren’t in any way hostile to you.’
Pestovitch nodded ‘yes’ to his master.
‘And then, you see,’ said the ex-king in that easy way of his, ‘we’ll have a lot of men here, borrow help from your police, and run through all your things. And then everything will be over. Meanwhile, if I may be your guest. . . . ’ When presently Pestovitch was alone with the king again, he found him in a state of jangling emotions. His spirit was tossing like a wind-whipped sea. One moment he was exalted300 and full of contempt for ‘that ass’ and his search; the next he was down in a pit of dread. ‘They will find them, Pestovitch, and then he’ll hang us.’
‘Hang us?’
The king put his long nose into his councillor’s face. ‘That grinning brute301 WANTS to hang us,’ he said. ‘And hang us he will, if we give him a shadow of a chance.’
‘But all their Modern State Civilisation!’
‘Do you think there’s any pity in that crew of Godless, Vivisecting Prigs?’ cried this last king of romance. ‘Do you think, Pestovitch, they understand anything of a high ambition or a splendid dream? Do you think that our gallant302 and sublime303 adventure has any appeal to them? Here am I, the last and greatest and most romantic of the Caesars, and do you think they will miss the chance of hanging me like a dog if they can, killing me like a rat in a hole? And that renegade! He who was once an anointed king! . . .
‘I hate that sort of eye that laughs and keeps hard,’ said the king.
‘I won’t sit still here and be caught like a fascinated rabbit,’ said the king in conclusion. ‘We must shift those bombs.’
‘Risk it,’ said Pestovitch. ‘Leave them alone.’
‘No,’ said the king. ‘Shift them near the frontier. Then while they watch us here — they will always watch us here now — we can buy an aeroplane abroad, and pick them up. . . . ’
The king was in a feverish304, irritable305 mood all that evening, but he made his plans nevertheless with infinite cunning. They must get the bombs away; there must be a couple of atomic hay lorries, the bombs could be hidden under the hay. . . . Pestovitch went and came, instructing trusty servants, planning and replanning. . . . The king and the ex-king talked very pleasantly of a number of subjects. All the while at the back of King Ferdinand Charles’s mind fretted306 the mystery of his vanished aeroplane. There came no news of its capture, and no news of its success. At any moment all that power at the back of his visitor might crumble307 away and vanish. . . .
It was past midnight, when the king, in a cloak and slouch hat that might equally have served a small farmer, or any respectable middle-class man, slipped out from an inconspicuous service gate on the eastward side of his palace into the thickly wooded gardens that sloped in a series of terraces down to the town. Pestovitch and his guard-valet Peter, both wrapped about in a similar disguise, came out among the laurels308 that bordered the pathway and joined him. It was a clear, warm night, but the stars seemed unusually little and remote because of the aeroplanes, each trailing a searchlight, that drove hither and thither309 across the blue. One great beam seemed to rest on the king for a moment as he came out of the palace; then instantly and reassuringly310 it had swept away. But while they were still in the palace gardens another found them and looked at them.
‘They see us,’ cried the king.
‘They make nothing of us,’ said Pestovitch.
The king glanced up and met a calm, round eye of light, that seemed to wink311 at him and vanish, leaving him blinded. . . .
The three men went on their way. Near the little gate in the garden railings that Pestovitch had caused to be unlocked, the king paused under the shadow of an flex312 and looked back at the place. It was very high and narrow, a twentieth-century rendering313 of mediaevalism, mediaevalism in steel and bronze and sham124 stone and opaque314 glass. Against the sky it splashed a confusion of pinnacles315. High up in the eastward wing were the windows of the apartments of the ex-king Egbert. One of them was brightly lit now, and against the light a little black figure stood very still and looked out upon the night.
The king snarled316.
‘He little knows how we slip through his fingers,’ said Pestovitch.
And as he spoke they saw the ex-king stretch out his arms slowly, like one who yawns, knuckle317 his eyes and turn inward — no doubt to his bed.
Down through the ancient winding318 back streets of his capital hurried the king, and at an appointed corner a shabby atomic-automobile319 waited for the three. It was a hackney carriage of the lowest grade, with dinted metal panels and deflated320 cushions. The driver was one of the ordinary drivers of the capital, but beside him sat the young secretary of Pestovitch, who knew the way to the farm where the bombs were hidden.
The automobile made its way through the narrow streets of the old town, which were still lit and uneasy — for the fleet of airships overhead had kept the cafes open and people abroad — over the great new bridge, and so by straggling outskirts321 to the country. And all through his capital the king who hoped to outdo Caesar, sat back and was very still, and no one spoke. And as they got out into the dark country they became aware of the searchlights wandering over the country-side like the uneasy ghosts of giants. The king sat forward and looked at these flitting whitenesses, and every now and then peered up to see the flying ships overhead.
‘I don’t like them,’ said the king.
Presently one of these patches of moonlight came to rest about them and seemed to be following their automobile. The king drew back.
‘The things are confoundedly noiseless,’ said the king. ‘It’s like being stalked by lean white cats.’
He peered again. ‘That fellow is watching us,’ he said.
And then suddenly he gave way to panic. ‘Pestovitch,’ he said, clutching his minister’s arm, ‘they are watching us. I’m not going through with this. They are watching us. I’m going back.’
Pestovitch remonstrated322. ‘Tell him to go back,’ said the king, and tried to open the window. For a few moments there was a grim struggle in the automobile; a gripping of wrists and a blow. ‘I can’t go through with it,’ repeated the king, ‘I can’t go through with it.’
‘But they’ll hang us,’ said Pestovitch.
‘Not if we were to give up now. Not if we were to surrender the bombs. It is you who brought me into this. . . . ’
At last Pestovitch compromised. There was an inn perhaps half a mile from the farm. They could alight there and the king could get brandy, and rest his nerves for a time. And if he still thought fit to go back he could go back.
‘See,’ said Pestovitch, ‘the light has gone again.’
The king peered up. ‘I believe he’s following us without a light,’ said the king.
In the little old dirty inn the king hung doubtful for a time, and was for going back and throwing himself on the mercy of the council. ‘If there is a council,’ said Pestovitch. ‘By this time your bombs may have settled it.
‘But if so, these infernal aeroplanes would go.’
‘They may not know yet.’
‘But, Pestovitch, why couldn’t you do all this without me?’
Pestovitch made no answer for a moment. ‘I was for leaving the bombs in their place,’ he said at last, and went to the window. About their conveyance323 shone a circle of bright light. Pestovitch had a brilliant idea. ‘I will send my secretary out to make a kind of dispute with the driver. Something that will make them watch up above there. Meanwhile you and I and Peter will go out by the back way and up by the hedges to the farm. . . . ’
It was worthy324 of his subtle reputation and it answered passing well.
In ten minutes they were tumbling over the wall of the farm-yard, wet, muddy, and breathless, but unobserved. But as they ran towards the barns the king gave vent63 to something between a groan325 and a curse, and all about them shone the light — and passed.
But had it passed at once or lingered for just a second?
‘They didn’t see us,’ said Peter.
‘I don’t think they saw us,’ said the king, and stared as the light went swooping326 up the mountain side, hung for a second about a hayrick, and then came pouring back.
‘In the barn!’ cried the king.
He bruised327 his shin against something, and then all three men were inside the huge steel-girdered barn in which stood the two motor hay lorries that were to take the bombs away. Kurt and Abel, the two brothers of Peter, had brought the lorries thither in daylight. They had the upper half of the loads of hay thrown off, ready to cover the bombs, so soon as the king should show the hiding-place. ‘There’s a sort of pit here,’ said the king. ‘Don’t light another lantern. This key of mine releases a ring. . . . ’
For a time scarcely a word was spoken in the darkness of the barn. There was the sound of a slab328 being lifted and then of feet descending a ladder into a pit. Then whispering and then heavy breathing as Kurt came struggling up with the first of the hidden bombs.
‘We shall do it yet,’ said the king. And then he gasped329. ‘Curse that light. Why in the name of Heaven didn’t we shut the barn door?’ For the great door stood wide open and all the empty, lifeless yard outside and the door and six feet of the floor of the barn were in the blue glare of an inquiring searchlight.
‘Shut the door, Peter,’ said Pestovitch.
‘No,’ cried the king, too late, as Peter went forward into the light. ‘Don’t show yourself!’ cried the king. Kurt made a step forward and plucked his brother back. For a time all five men stood still. It seemed that light would never go and then abruptly it was turned off, leaving them blinded. ‘Now,’ said the king uneasily, ‘now shut the door.’
‘Not completely,’ cried Pestovitch. ‘Leave a chink for us to go out by. . . . ’
It was hot work shifting those bombs, and the king worked for a time like a common man. Kurt and Abel carried the great things up and Peter brought them to the carts, and the king and Pestovitch helped him to place them among the hay. They made as little noise as they could. . . .
‘Ssh!’ cried the king. ‘What’s that?’
But Kurt and Abel did not hear, and came blundering up the ladder with the last of the load.
‘Ssh!’ Peter ran forward to them with a whispered remonstrance. Now they were still.
The barn door opened a little wider, and against the dim blue light outside they saw the black shape of a man.
‘Any one here?’ he asked, speaking with an Italian accent.
The king broke into a cold perspiration330. Then Pestovitch answered: ‘Only a poor farmer loading hay,’ he said, and picked up a huge hay fork and went forward softly.
‘You load your hay at a very bad time and in a very bad light,’ said the man at the door, peering in. ‘Have you no electric light here?’
Then suddenly he turned on an electric torch, and as he did so Pestovitch sprang forward. ‘Get out of my barn!’ he cried, and drove the fork full at the intruder’s chest. He had a vague idea that so he might stab the man to silence. But the man shouted loudly as the prongs pierced him and drove him backward, and instantly there was a sound of feet running across the yard.
‘Bombs,’ cried the man upon the ground, struggling with the prongs in his hand, and as Pestovitch staggered forward into view with the force of his own thrust, he was shot through the body by one of the two new-comers.
The man on the ground was badly hurt but plucky331. ‘Bombs,’ he repeated, and struggled up into a kneeling position and held his electric torch full upon the face of the king. ‘Shoot them,’ he cried, coughing and spitting blood, so that the halo of light round the king’s head danced about.
For a moment in that shivering circle of light the two men saw the king kneeling up in the cart and Peter on the barn floor beside him. The old fox looked at them sideways — snared332, a white-faced evil thing. And then, as with a faltering333 suicidal heroism334, he leant forward over the bomb before him, they fired together and shot him through the head.
The upper part of his face seemed to vanish.
‘Shoot them,’ cried the man who had been stabbed. ‘Shoot them all!’
And then his light went out, and he rolled over with a groan at the feet of his comrades.
But each carried a light of his own, and in another moment everything in the barn was visible again. They shot Peter even as he held up his hands in sign of surrender.
Kurt and Abel at the head of the ladder hesitated for a moment, and then plunged backward into the pit. ‘If we don’t kill them,’ said one of the sharpshooters, ‘they’ll blow us to rags. They’ve gone down that hatchway. Come! . . .
‘Here they are. Hands up! I say. Hold your light while I shoot. . . . ’
8
It was still quite dark when his valet and Firmin came together and told the ex-king Egbert that the business was settled.
He started up into a sitting position on the side of his bed.
‘Did he go out?’ asked the ex-king.
‘He is dead,’ said Firmin. ‘He was shot.’
The ex-king reflected. ‘That’s about the best thing that could have happened,’ he said. ‘Where are the bombs? In that farm-house on the opposite hill-side! Why! the place is in sight! Let us go. I’ll dress. Is there any one in the place, Firmin, to get us a cup of coffee?’
Through the hungry twilight335 of the dawn the ex-king’s automobile carried him to the farm-house where the last rebel king was lying among his bombs. The rim55 of the sky flashed, the east grew bright, and the sun was just rising over the hills when King Egbert reached the farm-yard. There he found the hay lorries drawn out from the barn with the dreadful bombs still packed upon them. A couple of score of aviators held the yard, and outside a few peasants stood in a little group and stared, ignorant as yet of what had happened. Against the stone wall of the farm-yard five bodies were lying neatly side by side, and Pestovitch had an expression of surprise on his face and the king was chiefly identifiable by his long white hands and his blonde moustache. The wounded aeronaut had been carried down to the inn. And after the ex-king had given directions in what manner the bombs were to be taken to the new special laboratories above Zurich, where they could be unpacked336 in an atmosphere of chlorine, he turned to these five still shapes.
Their five pairs of feet stuck out with a curious stiff unanimity337. . . .
‘What else was there to do?’ he said in answer to some internal protest.
‘I wonder, Firmin, if there are any more of them?’
‘Bombs, sir?’ asked Firmin.
‘No, such kings. . . .
‘The pitiful folly338 of it!’ said the ex-king, following his thoughts. ‘Firmin,’ as an ex-professor of International Politics, I think it falls to you to bury them. There? . . . No, don’t put them near the well. People will have to drink from that well. Bury them over there, some way off in the field.’
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1
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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spike
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| n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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5
densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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6
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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precipices
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| n.悬崖，峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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10
solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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14
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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15
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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16
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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17
bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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18
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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19
indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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20
humanitarian
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| n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者 | |
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21
ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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22
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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23
tragical
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| adj. 悲剧的, 悲剧性的 | |
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24
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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26
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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27
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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28
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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29
poke
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| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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30
remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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31
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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32
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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33
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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34
belligerent
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| adj.好战的，挑起战争的；n.交战国，交战者 | |
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belligerents
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| n.交战的一方（指国家、集团或个人）( belligerent的名词复数 ) | |
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36
wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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37
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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38
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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39
unify
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| vt.使联合，统一；使相同，使一致 | |
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40
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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41
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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42
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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43
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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44
daunted
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| 使（某人）气馁，威吓( daunt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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46
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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47
aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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48
delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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49
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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50
anarchistic
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| 无政府主义的 | |
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51
spouting
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| n.水落管系统v.（指液体）喷出( spout的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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52
redoubtable
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| adj.可敬的；可怕的 | |
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53
anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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54
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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55
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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56
conflagrations
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| n.大火（灾）( conflagration的名词复数 ) | |
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57
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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58
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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59
sleeper
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| n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺 | |
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60
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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61
crater
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| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
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62
patriots
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| 爱国者，爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
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63
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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64
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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65
initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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66
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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67
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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68
persuasiveness
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| 说服力 | |
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69
chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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70
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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71
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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72
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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73
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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74
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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75
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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76
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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77
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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78
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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79
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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80
wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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81
sedulously
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| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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82
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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83
monarchs
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| 君主，帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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84
monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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85
influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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86
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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87
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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88
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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retinue
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| n.侍从；随员 | |
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apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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91
tariffs
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| 关税制度； 关税( tariff的名词复数 )； 关税表； （旅馆或饭店等的）收费表； 量刑标准 | |
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92
etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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93
abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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94
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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96
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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97
plausibility
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| n. 似有道理, 能言善辩 | |
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98
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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100
haggle
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| vi.讨价还价，争论不休 | |
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101
haggling
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| v.讨价还价( haggle的现在分词 ) | |
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102
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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106
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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107
strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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108
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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109
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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110
busted
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| adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词 | |
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111
advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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112
implicate
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| vt.使牵连其中，涉嫌 | |
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113
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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114
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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115
impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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116
lichenous
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| adj.青苔的 | |
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117
tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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118
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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119
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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120
caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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121
meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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122
aluminium
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| n.铝 (=aluminum) | |
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123
dummies
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| n.仿制品( dummy的名词复数 )；橡皮奶头；笨蛋；假传球 | |
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124
sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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125
shams
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| 假象( sham的名词复数 )； 假货； 虚假的行为（或感情、言语等）； 假装…的人 | |
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126
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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127
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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128
solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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129
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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130
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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131
presidency
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| n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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132
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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133
reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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134
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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135
despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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136
fetter
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| n./vt.脚镣，束缚 | |
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137
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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138
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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139
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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140
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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141
chancellor
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| n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长 | |
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142
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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143
stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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144
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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145
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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146
memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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147
bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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148
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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149
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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150
crumbs
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| int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式 | |
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151
abdication
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| n.辞职；退位 | |
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152
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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153
contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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154
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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155
heterogeneous
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| adj.庞杂的；异类的 | |
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156
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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157
potentates
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| n.君主，统治者( potentate的名词复数 )；有权势的人 | |
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158
investigators
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| n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 ) | |
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159
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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160
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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161
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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162
recapitulating
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| v.总结，扼要重述( recapitulate的现在分词 ) | |
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163
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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164
amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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165
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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166
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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167
repudiate
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| v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行 | |
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168
foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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169
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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170
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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171
irreconcilably
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| （观点、目标或争议）不可调和的，不相容的 | |
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172
retention
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| n.保留，保持，保持力，记忆力 | |
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173
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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174
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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175
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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176
administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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177
caterer
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| n. 备办食物者，备办宴席者 | |
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178
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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179
controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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180
demurred
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| v.表示异议，反对( demur的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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181
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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182
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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183
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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184
unified
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| (unify 的过去式和过去分词)； 统一的； 统一标准的； 一元化的 | |
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185
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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186
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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187
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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188
expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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189
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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190
vaults
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| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
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191
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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192
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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193
vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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194
emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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195
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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196
antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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197
unifying
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| 使联合( unify的现在分词 )； 使相同； 使一致； 统一 | |
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198
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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199
dexterity
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| n.(手的)灵巧，灵活 | |
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200
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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201
elucidate
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| v.阐明，说明 | |
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202
gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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203
procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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204
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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205
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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206
broached
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| v.谈起( broach的过去式和过去分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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207
corrupted
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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208
mellowness
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| 成熟； 芳醇； 肥沃； 怡然 | |
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209
ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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210
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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211
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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212
proffered
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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213
postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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214
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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215
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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216
combative
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| adj.好战的；好斗的 | |
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217
monstrously
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218
luminously
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| 发光的； 明亮的； 清楚的； 辉赫 | |
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219
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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220
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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221
harping
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| n.反复述说 | |
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222
subjugation
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| n.镇压，平息，征服 | |
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223
arsenal
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| n.兵工厂，军械库 | |
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224
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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225
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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226
acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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227
submissions
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| n.提交( submission的名词复数 )；屈从；归顺；向法官或陪审团提出的意见或论据 | |
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228
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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229
temerity
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| n.鲁莽，冒失 | |
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230
evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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231
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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232
illiterate
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| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
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233
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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234
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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235
mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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236
pacification
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| n. 讲和，绥靖，平定 | |
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237
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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238
foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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239
swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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240
consorts
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| n.配偶( consort的名词复数 )；（演奏古典音乐的）一组乐师；一组古典乐器；一起v.结伴( consort的第三人称单数 )；交往；相称；调和 | |
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241
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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242
intercepting
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| 截取（技术），截接 | |
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243
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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244
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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245
steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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246
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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247
maize
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| n.玉米 | |
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248
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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249
debris
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| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
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250
pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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251
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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252
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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253
aviators
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| 飞机驾驶员，飞行员( aviator的名词复数 ) | |
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254
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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255
tattoo
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| n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于 | |
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256
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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257
enamel
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| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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258
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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259
azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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260
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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261
turret
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| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
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262
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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263
pompously
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| adv.傲慢地，盛大壮观地；大模大样 | |
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264
antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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265
monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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266
intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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267
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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268
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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269
disarmed
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| v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 )；使息怒 | |
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270
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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271
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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272
tugs
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| n.猛拉( tug的名词复数 )；猛拖；拖船v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的第三人称单数 ) | |
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273
stint
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| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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274
gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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275
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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276
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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277
specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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278
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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279
consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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280
envoy
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| n.使节，使者，代表，公使 | |
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281
theatrically
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| adv.戏剧化地 | |
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282
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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283
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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284
belied
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| v.掩饰( belie的过去式和过去分词 )；证明（或显示）…为虚假；辜负；就…扯谎 | |
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285
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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286
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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287
tiresomely
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| adj. 令人厌倦的，讨厌的 | |
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288
babbled
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| v.喋喋不休( babble的过去式和过去分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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289
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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290
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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291
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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292
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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293
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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294
embargo
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| n.禁运（令）；vt.对...实行禁运，禁止（通商） | |
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295
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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296
genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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297
confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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298
geniality
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| n.和蔼，诚恳；愉快 | |
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299
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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300
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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301
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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302
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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303
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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304
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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305
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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306
fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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307
crumble
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| vi.碎裂，崩溃；vt.弄碎，摧毁 | |
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308
laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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309
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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310
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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311
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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312
flex
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| n.皮线，花线；vt.弯曲或伸展 | |
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313
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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314
opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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315
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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316
snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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317
knuckle
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| n.指节；vi.开始努力工作；屈服，认输 | |
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318
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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319
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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320
deflated
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| adj. 灰心丧气的 | |
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321
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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322
remonstrated
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| v.抗议( remonstrate的过去式和过去分词 )；告诫 | |
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323
conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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324
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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325
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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326
swooping
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
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327
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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328
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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329
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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330
perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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331
plucky
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| adj.勇敢的 | |
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332
snared
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| v.用罗网捕捉，诱陷，陷害( snare的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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333
faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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334
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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335
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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336
unpacked
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| v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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337
unanimity
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| n.全体一致，一致同意 | |
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338
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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