The World Peril of 1910 | Page 6

of Germany, taking hold of the
model. "It is almost superhuman."
"Yes," said the Chancellor, "it is damnable!"
"I," said the Field Marshal, drily, "think it's admirable, always
supposing that Mr Castellan is prepared to place this mysterious
invention at the disposal of his Majesty."
"Yes," said the Kaiser, leaning with his back against the door, "that is,
of course, the first proposition to be considered. What are your terms,
Mr Castellan?"
Castellan looked at the three men all armed. The Chancellor and the
Field Marshal wore their swords, and the Kaiser had a revolver in his
hip pocket. The Chancellor and the Field Marshal straightened up as
the Kaiser spoke, and their hands moved instinctively towards their
sword hilts. The Kaiser looked at the model of the Flying Fish in his
hand. His face was, as usual, like a mask. He saw nothing, thought of
nothing. For the moment he was not a man: he was just the incarnation
of an idea.
"Field Marshal, you are a soldier," said Castellan, "and I see that your
hand has gone to your sword-hilt. Swords, of course, are the emblems
of military rank, but there is no use for them now."
"What do you mean, sir?" exclaimed the Count, clapping his right hand
on the hilt. After what he had seen he honestly believed that this
Irishman was a wizard of science who ought not to be trusted in the
same room with the Kaiser. Castellan went back to his machine and
said:
"Draw your sword, sir, and see."
And then the keys began to click.

The Field Marshal's sword flashed out of the sheath. A second later the
Chancellor's did the same, and the Kaiser's right hand went back
towards his hip pocket.
Castellan got up and said:
"Your Majesty has a revolver. Be good enough, as you value your own
safety, to unload it, and throw the cartridges out of the window."
"But why?" exclaimed the Kaiser, pulling a Mauser repeating pistol out
of his hip-pocket. "Who are you, that you should give orders to me?"
"Only a man, your Majesty," replied Castellan, with a bow and a smile;
"a man who could explode every cartridge in that pistol of yours at
once before you had time to fire a shot. You have seen what has
happened already."
William the Second had seen enough. He walked to one of the
windows opening on the enclosed gardens, threw it open, dropped the
pistol out, and said:
"Now, let us have the proof of what you say."
"In a moment, your Majesty," replied Castellan, going back to his
machine, and beginning to work the keys rapidly. "I am here, an
unarmed man; let their Excellencies, the Chancellor and the Field
Marshal, attack me with their swords if they can. I am not joking. I am
staking my life on the success or failure of this experiment."
"Does your Majesty consent?" said the Field Marshal, raising his
sword.
"There could be no better test," replied the Kaiser. "Mr Castellan makes
an experiment on which he stakes his life; we are making an
experiment on which we stake the welfare of the German Empire, and,
perhaps, the fate of the world. If he is willing, I am."
"And I am ready," replied Castellan, working the keys faster and faster

as he spoke, and looking at the two swords as carelessly as if they had
been a couple of walking sticks.
The sword points advanced towards him; the keys of the machine
clicked faster and faster. The atmosphere of the room became tenser
and tenser; the Kaiser leaned back against the door with his arms folded.
When the points were within three feet of Castellan's head, the steel
began to gleam with a bluish green light. The Chancellor and the Field
Marshal stopped; they saw sparkles of blue flame running along the
sword blades. Then came paralysis! the swords dropped from their
hands, and they staggered back.
"Great God, this is too much," gasped the Chancellor. "The man is
impregnable. It is too much, your Majesty. I fought through the war of
'70 and '71, but I surrender to this; this is not human."
"I beg your pardon Excellency," said Castellan, getting up from the
machine, and picking the two swords from the floor, "it is quite human,
only a little science that the majority of humanity does not happen to
know. Your swords, gentlemen," and he presented the hilts to them.
"Bravo!" exclaimed the Kaiser, "well done! You have beaten the two
best soldiers in the German Empire, and you have done it like a
gentleman. But you are not altogether an Irishman, are you, Mr
Castellan?"
"No, sir, I am a Spaniard as well. The earliest ancestor that I know
commanded the Santiago, wrecked on