Part 19 (1/2)
”I beg your pardon, it is beyond all doubt,” replied Clemenceau, sharply.
CHAPTER XVI.
STRIKE NOT WOMAN, EVEN WITH ROSES.
”Stop a bit,” said M. Cantagnac, pulling a newspaper out of his pocket.
”This is a journal I picked up in the cars. I always do that. There is sure to be some pa.s.senger to throw them down and so I never buy any myself when I am traveling, ha, ha! Well, in this very sheet, there is a long article about you. It is called 'The Ideal Cannon' and the writer declares that the experiment was a great hit, ha, ha! and he undertakes to explain the new system.”
Clemenceau smiled contemptuously. He was not one of those to make a secret public property on which a nation's salvation might depend. In such momentous matters, he would have had a.r.s.enals, armories, navy yards and military museums labeled over the door:
”Speech is silver, silence is of gold; Death unto him who dares the tale unfold!”
”Ah, he wouldn't know everything, of course. However, he makes out that you obtain the wonderful result by fixing essential oils in a special magazine and that you managed to project a solid shot to the prodigious distance of--of--” he referred to the newspaper--”fifteen miles by means of--of--I do not understand these jaw-breaking scientific terms. Is it not nitroglycerine?”
”I do not use them myself,” remarked Clemenceau, dryly.
”But he adds--look here!” continued the worthy Man from Ma.r.s.eilles, regretfully, ”that what you managed to perform with your model and material, specially prepared by yourself, could not be attained on the proper scale in a war campaign. He goes on to say that the scientific world await the explanation of the means to obtain such power as, heretofore, the pressure of liquefied gases has been but some five hundred pounds to the square inch, about a tenth of that of explosives now used. It is admitted, however, that there may be something in your increase of effectiveness by reiterated emissions--” He began to stammer, as if he were speaking too glibly, but his auditor took no alarm. ”He continues that, up to this day, gases have failed as propelling powers from their instantaneous explosions.”
”The writer is correct,” said Clemenceau, a little warmed, ”or, rather, he had foundation for his criticism when he wrote. The powerful agent was not perfectly controllable at the period of my last official experiments, but that is not the case at present. This enormous, almost incalculable power is so perfectly under my thumb, monsieur, that not only is it manageable in the largest cannon, but it is suitable for a parlor pistol, which a child might play with.”
”Wonderful!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cantagnac, with undoubted sincerity, for his eyes gleamed.
”In solving that last enigma, I found the power became more strong when curbed. Consequently, the gun that would before have carried fifteen miles, may send twenty, and the ball, if not explosible, might ricochet three.”
”Wonderful!” cried the Ma.r.s.eillais again, who displayed very deep interest in the abstruse subject for a retired notary.
”The bullet, or sh.e.l.l, or ball--all the projectiles are perfected now!”
went on Clemenceau, triumphantly, ”and were I surrounded by a million of men, or had I an impregnable fortress before me, a battery of my cannon would finish the struggle in not more than four hours.”
”Why, this is a force of nature, not man's work,” said Cantagnac, through his grating teeth, as though the admiration were extracted from him. ”I do not see how any army or any fort could resist such instruments.”
”No, monsieur, not one.”
”Would not all the other nations unite against your country?”
”What would that matter, when, I repeat, the number of adversaries would not affect the question?”
”What a dreadful thing! I beg your pardon, but I go to church and I have had 'Love one another!' dinned into my ears. What is to become of that precept, eh?”
”It is what I should diffuse by my cannon,” returned Clemenceau.
”By scattering the limbs of thousands of men, ha, ha!” but his laugh sounded very hollow, indeed.
”Not so; by destroying warfare,” was the inventor's reply. ”War is impious, immoral and monstrous, and not the means employed in it. The more terrible they are, the sooner will come the millennium. On the day when men find that no human protection, no rank, no wealth, no influential connections, nothing can s.h.i.+eld them from destruction by hundreds of thousands, not only on the battlefield, but in their houses, within the highest fortified ramparts, they will no longer risk their country, homes, families and bodies, for causes often insignificant or dishonest. At present, all reflecting men who believe that the divine law ought to rule the earth, should have but one thought and a single aim: to learn the truth, speak it and impress it by all possible means wherever it is not recognized. I am a man who has frittered away too much of his time on personal tastes and emotions, and I vow that I shall never let a day pa.s.s without meditating upon the destination whither all the world should move, and I mean to trample over any obstacle that rises before me. The time is one when men could carouse, amuse themselves, doze and trifle--or keep in a petty clique. The real society will be formed of those who toil and watch, believe and govern.”
”I see, monsieur, that you cherish a hearty hatred for the enemies of the student and the worker,” said the ex-notary, not without an inexplicable bitterness, ”and that you seek the suppression of the swordsman.”