The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim (books to read now txt) 📕

is singleness of purpose. You followed your own purpose, contrary to my advice, contrary to Terniloff’s. You will gain by it.”

Seaman finished his meal in due course, and the tray was removed. Soon the two men were alone again, Seaman puffing out dense volumes of smoke, gripping his cigar between his teeth, brandishing it sometimes in his hand to give effect to his words. A little of his marvellous caution seemed to have deserted him. For the first time he spoke directly to his companion.

“Von Ragastein,” he said, “it is a great country, ours. It is a wonderful empire we shall build. Tonight I am on fire with the mighty things. I have a list of instructions for you, many details. They can wait. We will talk of our future, our great and glorious destiny as the mightiest nation who has ever earned for herself the right to govern the world. You would think that in Germany there was excitement. There is none. The task of everyone is allotted, their work made clear to them. Like a mighty piece of gigantic machinery, we move towards war. Every regiment knows its station, every battery commander knows his positions, every general knows his exact line of attack. Rations, clothing, hospitals, every unit of which you can think, has its movements calculated out for it to the last nicety.”

“And the final result?” Dominey asked. “Is that also calculated?”

Seaman, with trembling fingers, unlocked the little despatch box which stood by his side and took from it jealously a sheet of linen-backed parchment.

“You, my friend,” he said, “are one of the first to gaze upon this. This will show you the dream of our Kaiser. This will show you the framework of the empire that is to be.”

He laid out a map upon the table. The two men bent over it. It was a map of Europe, in which England, a diminished France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, were painted in dark blue. For the rest, the whole of the space included between two lines, one from Hamburg to Athens, the other from Finland to the Black Sea, was painted a deep scarlet, with here and there portions of it in slightly lighter colouring. Seaman laid his palm upon the map.

“There lies our future Empire,” he said solemnly and impressively.

“Explain it to me,” Dominey begged.

“Broadly speaking, everything between those two lines belongs to the new German Empire. Poland, Courland, Lithuania, and the Ukraine will possess a certain degree of autonomous government, which will practically amount to nothing. Asia is there at our feet. No longer will Great Britain control the supplies of the world. Raw materials of every description will be ours. Leather, tallow, wheat, oil, fats, timber⁠—they are all there for us to draw upon. And for wealth⁠—India and China! What more could you have, my friend?”

“You take my breath away. But what about Austria?”

Seaman’s grin was almost sardonic.

“Austria,” he said, “must already feel her doom creeping upon her. There is no room in middle Europe for two empires, and the House of Hapsburg must fall before the House of Hohenzollern. Austria, body and soul, must become part of the German Empire. Then further down, mark you. Romania must become a vassal state or be conquered. Bulgaria is already ours. Turkey, with Constantinople, is pledged. Greece will either join us or be wiped out. Serbia will be blotted from the map; probably also Montenegro. These countries which are painted in fainter red, like Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece, become vassal states, to be absorbed one by one as opportunity presents itself.”

Dominey’s finger strayed northward.

“Belgium,” he observed, “has disappeared.”

“Belgium we shall occupy and enslave,” Seaman replied. “Our line of advance into France lies that way, and we need her ports to dominate the Thames. Holland and the Scandinavian countries, as you observe are left in the lighter shade of red. If an opportunity occurs, Holland and Denmark may be incited to take the field against us. If they do so, it means absorption. If they remain, as they probably will, scared neutrals, they will none the less be our vassal states when the last gun has been fired.”

“And Norway and Sweden?”

Seaman looked down at the map and smiled.

“Look at them,” he said. “They lie at our mercy. Norway has her western seaboard, and there might always be the question of British aid so far as she is concerned. But Sweden is ours, body and soul. More than any other of these vassal states, it is our master’s plan to bring her into complete subjection. We need her lusty manhood, the finest cannon food in the world, for later wars, if indeed such a thing should be. She has timber and minerals which we also need. But there⁠—it is enough. First of all men in this country, my friend, you Von Ragastein, have gazed upon this picture of the future.”

“This is marvellously conceived,” Dominey muttered, “but what of Russia with her millions? How is it that we propose, notwithstanding her countless millions of men, to help ourselves to her richest provinces, to drive a way through the heart of her empire?”

“This,” Seaman replied, “is where genius steps in. Russia has been ripe for a revolution any time for the last fifteen years. We have secret agents now in every city and country place and throughout the army. We shall teach Russia how to make herself a free country.”

Dominey shivered a little with an almost involuntary repulsion. For the second time that almost satyr-like grin on Seaman’s face revolted him.

“And what of my own work?”

Seaman helped himself to a liqueur. He was, as a rule, a moderate man, but this was the third time he had replenished his glass since his hasty meal.

“My brain is weary, friend,” he admitted, passing his hand over his forehead. “I have a great fatigue. The thoughts jump about. This last week has been one of fierce excitements. Everything, almost your daily life, has been planned. We shall go over it within a day