Havoc | Page 4

a
murmur of voices. The two men turned from their window back into
the room. Dorward commenced to roll a cigarette with yellow-stained,
nervous fingers, while Bellamy threw himself into an easy-chair with a
gesture of depression.
"So it is over, this long-talked-of meeting," he said, half to himself, half
to Dorward. "It is over, and Europe is left to wonder."
"They were together for scarcely more than an hour," Dorward
murmured.
"Long enough," Bellamy answered. "That little room in the Palace, my
friend, may yet become famous."
"If you and I could buy its secrets," Dorward remarked, finally shaping
a cigarette and lighting it, "we should be big bidders, I think. I'd give
fifty thousand dollars myself to be able to cable even a hundred words
of their conversation."
"For the truth," Bellamy said, "the whole truth, there could be no price
sufficient. We made our effort in different directions, both of us. With
infinite pains I planted - I may tell you this now that the thing is over -
seven spies in the Palace. They have been of as much use as rabbits. I
don't believe that a single one of them got any further than the
kitchens."
Dorward nodded gloomily.
"I guess they weren't taking any chances up there," he remarked.
"There wasn't a secretary in the room. Carstairs was nearly thrown out,

and he had a permit to enter the Palace. The great staircase was held
with soldiers, and Dick swore that there were Maxims in the corridors."
Bellamy sighed.
"We shall hear the roar of bigger guns before we are many months
older, Dorward," he declared.
The journalist glanced at his friend keenly. "You believe that?"
Bellamy shrugged his shoulders.
"Do you suppose that this meeting is for nothing?" he asked. "When
Austria, Germany and Russia stand whispering in a corner, can't you
believe it is across the North Sea that they point? Things have been
shaping that way for years, and the time is almost ripe."
"You English are too nervous to live, nowadays," Dorward declared
impatiently. "I'd just like to know what they said about America."
Bellamy smiled with faint but delicate irony.
"Without a doubt, the Prince will tell you," he said. "He can scarcely do
more to show his regard for your country. He is giving you a special
interview - you alone out of about two hundred journalists. Very likely
he will give you an exact account of everything that transpired. first of
all, he will assure you that this meeting has been brought about in the
interests of peace. He will tell you that the welfare of your dear country
is foremost in the thoughts of his master. He will assure you - "
"Say, you're jealous, my friend," Dorward interrupted calmly. "I
wonder what you'd give me for my ten minutes alone with the
Chancellor, eh?"
"If he told me the truth," Bellamy asserted, "I'd give my life for it. For
the sort of stuff you're going to hear, I'd give nothing. Can't you realize
that for yourself, Dorward? You know the man - false as Hell but with
the tongue of a serpent. He will grasp your hand; he will declare

himself glad to speak through you to the great Anglo-Saxon races - to
England and to his dear friends the Americans. He is only too pleased
to have the opportunity of expressing himself candidly and openly.
Peace is to be the watchword of the future. The white doves have
hovered over the Palace. The rulers of the earth have met that the crash
of arms may be stilled and that this terrible unrest which broods over
Europe shall finally be broken up. They have pledged themselves hand
in hand to work together for this object, - Russia, broken and
humiliated, but with an immense army still available, whose only
chance of holding her place among the nations is another and a
successful war; Austria, on fire for the seaboard - Austria, to whom war
would give the desire of her existence; Germany, with Bismarck's last
but secret words written in letters of fire on the walls of her palaces, in
the hearts of her rulers, in the brain of her great Emperor. Colonies!
Expansion! Empire! Whose colonies, I wonder? Whose empire? Will
he tell you that, my friend Dorward?"
The journalist shrugged his shoulders and glanced at the clock.
"I guess he'll tell me what he chooses and I shall print it," he answered
indifferently. "It's all part of the game, of course. I am not exactly
chicken enough to expect the truth. All the same, my message will
come from the lips of the Chancellor immediately after this wonderful
meeting."
"He makes use of you," Bellamy declared, "to throw dust into our eyes
and yours."
"Even