“And what about the Papal Nuncio?” asked Dr. Wurm quietly.
“The Holy See requests us to maintain order at all costs. It wants us to have mysticism prohibited by the police. That wouldn’t do in England, and altogether … Well, I assure you it weighed quite fourteen pounds. Heavens, I had all I could do to keep from falling into the water!”
Baron Yanato smiled still more politely. “But we do not wish for neutrality. He is a great Japanese. The whole world can adopt the Japanese faith. We, too, would like to send out missionaries for once, and teach religion.”
“Baron,” said Sir W. O’Patterney gravely, “you know that the excellent relations existing between our Governments …”
“England can adopt the Japanese faith,” smiled Baron Yanato, “and our relations will be even better.”
“Stop, batushko,” cried General Buchtin. “We’ll have no Japanese faith. If there’s to be any faith, then it must be the Orthodox faith. And do you know why? First, because it is orthodox, and secondly, because it is Russian, and thirdly, because our Czar so wills it, and fourthly, because we, my friend, have the biggest army. I do everything like a soldier, gentlemen: downright frankly and openly. If there’s to be a religion, then it’s to be our Orthodox religion.”
“But, gentlemen, that is not the question,” cried Sir W. O’Patterney excitedly. “That isn’t what we’re here for!”
“Quite right,” said Dr. Wurm. “We have to agree upon a common line of conduct with regard to God.”
“Which one?” suddenly asked the Chinese plenipotentiary, Mr. Kei, lifting at last his wrinkled eyelids.
“Which one?” repeated Dr. Wurm in astonishment. “Why, surely there’s only one.”
“Our Japanese God,” smiled Baron Yanato blandly.
“The Orthodox Greek God, batushko, and none other,” contradicted the General, as red in the face as a turkey-cock.
“Buddha,” Mr. Kei said, and again dropped his lids, becoming the very counterpart of a dried-up mummy.
Sir W. O’Patterney stood up agitatedly. “Gentlemen,” he said, “kindly follow me.”
Thereupon the diplomats again proceeded to the council chamber. At eight o’clock in the evening His Excellency, General Buchtin, rushed out, purple in the face, and clenching his fists. After him came Dr. Wurm, agitatedly arranging his papers. Sir W. O’Patterney, regardless of polite usage, came out with his hat on his head: his face was deep red; M. Dudieu followed him in silence. Prince Trivelino walked away, looking very pale, Baron Yanato at his heels with his perpetual smile. The last to leave was Mr. Kei, with downcast eyes, an exceedingly long black rosary sliding through his fingers.
This concludes the report which I. Sawitt published in the Herald. No official communication concerning this Conference was given out, except the one already mentioned relating to the spheres of interest, and if any decision was taken it was apparently of no great value. For already, to use the familiar gynaecological phrase, unforeseen events were shaping themselves in the “womb of history.”
XXI
The Telegram
Snow was falling in the mountains. All night through it had come down in great silent flakes; nearly two feet deep of it lay there new-fallen, and still the white starlets of snow floated earthwards without a pause.
Silence lay over the forests, save that now and then a branch would snap beneath too great a load, and the sound would drive itself a little path through the stillness intensified by the snow.
Then it grew colder, and from the direction of Prussia came whistling an icy wind. The soft flakes changed into stinging hail hurling itself straight into your face. The fallen snow rose in sharp needle-points and whirled through the air. White clouds blew down from the trees, swirled madly above the ground, spun about, and soared up to the darkened heavens. It was snowing upwards from the earth to the sky.
In the depths of the forest the branches were creaking and groaning; a tree broke and fell with a crash, shattering the undergrowth. But abrupt noises like these were sundered and swept away on the whistling, booming, shrieking, rending, distracted howl of the wind. When for an instant it ceased, you could hear the frozen snow crunching shrilly under your feet like powdered glass.
Above Spindelmühl a telegraph messenger was making his way through the storm. It was confoundedly heavy going through the heaped-up snow. The messenger had his cap fastened tight over his ears with a red handkerchief, and had woollen gloves on, and a gaudy scarf round his neck, and still he was cold. “Ah, well,” he was thinking, “in another hour and a half at any rate I’ll have crawled up to Bear Valley, and I’ll borrow a sledge for the run down. But what the devil possesses people to send telegrams in filthy weather like this!”
At the Maiden’s Bridge a gust caught him and spun him round nearly in a circle. With frozen hands he clung to the post of the signboard set there for tourists. “Holy Virgin!” he muttered, “this surely can’t last!” And then across a clearing a huge cloud-like mass of snow came whirling towards him—coming nearer and nearer—now down upon him … he must hold his breath at all costs … A thousand needle-points drove into his face and made their way inside his coat; through a little rent in his clothing the icy particles reached his skin; the man was drenched beneath his frozen garments. The cloud blew past, and the messenger felt very much disposed to turn back to the post-office.
“Marek, Engineer”—he repeated the address to himself. “Well, he certainly don’t belong to these parts. But a telegram’s urgent, you never know what it’s about—one of his family, maybe, or something important …”
The storm calmed down a little, and the messenger struck out across the Maiden’s Bridge and up along the stream. The snow crunched under his heavy boots, and his feet were frightfully cold. Once
