Part 30 (2/2)
”I am not courting unnecessary danger,” retorted the Admiral; ”but I am not dead to the realities of war. My apartments are directly connected with the roof.”
”So you can hear the bomb explosions,” suggested the Countess.
”And why not?” snapped the Admiral; ”we must prepare for danger.”
”But you have not been bred for danger,” scoffed the Countess. ”Perhaps you would do well to have your reactions to fear tested out in the psychic laboratories; if you should pa.s.s the test you might be elected as a father of soldiers; it would surely set a good example to our impecunious Hohenzollern bachelors for whom there are no wives.”
The young Count evidently did not comprehend his mother's spirit of raillery. ”Has that not been tried?” he asked, turning toward Dr. Zimmern.
”It has,” stated the Eugenist, ”more than a hundred years ago. There was once an entire regiment of such Hohenzollern soldiers in the Bavarian mines.”
”And how did they turn out?” I asked, my curiosity tempting me into indiscretion.
”They mutinied and murdered their officers and then held an election--”
Zimmern paused and I caught his eye which seemed to say, ”We have gone too far with this.”
”Yes, and what happened?” queried the Countess.
”They all voted for themselves as Colonel,” replied the Doctor drily.
At this I looked for an outburst of indignation from the orthodox Admiral, but instead he seemed greatly elated. ”Of course,” he enthused; ”the blood breeds true. It verily has the quality of true divinity. No wonder we super-men repudiated that spineless conception of the soft Christian G.o.d and the servile Jewish Jesus.”
”But Jesus was not a coward,” spoke up Marguerite. ”I have read the story of his life; it is very wonderful; he was a brave man, who met his death unflinchingly.”
”But where did you read it?” asked the Countess. ”It must be very new. I try to keep up on the late novels but I never heard of this 'Story of Jesus.'”
”What you say is true,” said the Admiral, turning to Marguerite, ”but since you like to read so well, you should get Prof. Ohlenslagger's book and learn the explanation of the fact that you have just stated. We have long known that all those great men whom the inferior races claim as their geniuses are of truth of German blood, and that the fighting quality of the outer races is due to the German blood that was scattered by our early emigrations.
”But the distinctive contribution that Prof. Ohlenslagger makes to these long established facts is in regard to the parentage of this man Jesus.
In the Jewish accounts, which the Christians accepted, the truth was crudely covered up with a most unscientific fable, which credited the paternity of Jesus to miraculous interference with the laws of nature.
”But now the truth comes out by Prof. Ohlenslagger's erudite reasoning.
This unknown father of Jesus was an adventurer from Central Asia, a man of Teutonic blood. On no other conception can the mixed elements in the character of Jesus be explained. His was the case of a dual personality of conflicting inheritance. One day he would say: 'Lay up for yourself treasures'--that was the Jewish blood speaking. The next day he would say: 'I come to bring a sword'--that was the n.o.ble German blood of a Teutonic ancestor. It is logical, it must be true, for it was reasoned out by one of our most rational professors.”
The Countess yawned; Marguerite sat silent with troubled brows; Dr.
Ludwig Zimmern gazed abstractedly toward the cold electric imitation of a fire, above which on a mantle stood two casts, diminutive reproductions of the figures beside the door of the Emperor's palace, the one the likeness of William the Great, the other the Statue of the German G.o.d. But I was thinking of the news I had heard that afternoon from my Ore Chief--that Captain Grauble's vessel had returned to Berlin.
CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH A WOMAN ACCUSES ME OF MURDER AND I PLACE A RUBY NECKLACE ABOUT HER THROAT
~1~
Anxious to renew my acquaintance with Captain Grauble at the earliest opportunity, I sent my social secretary to invite him to meet me for a dinner engagement in one of the popular halls of the Free Level.
When I reached the dining hall I found Captain Grauble awaiting me. But he was not alone. Seated with him were two girls and so strange a picture of contrast I had never seen. The girl on his right was an extreme example of the prevailing blonde type. Her pinkish white skin seemed transparent, her eyes were the palest blue and her hair was bright yet pale gold. About her neck was a chain of blue stones linked with platinum. She was dressed in a mottled gown of light blue and gold, and so subtly blended were the colours that she and her gown seemed to be part of the same created thing. But on Grauble's left sat a woman whose gown was flas.h.i.+ng crimson slashed with jetty black. Her skin was white with a positive whiteness of rare marble and her cheeks and lips flamed with blood's own red. The sheen of her hair was that of a raven's wing, and her eyes scintillated with the blackness of polished jade.
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