id="Page_12" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 12]"/>envelope, and walked on to the window. For a moment he stood staring out across the harbour; then there was the sound of ripping paper, a moment's silence, and he thrust the envelope into his pocket and turned back to the table.

"It is well!" he said, and sat down. "It is well, Kasia!"

"I am glad of that, father," she answered, in a low voice, and poured his coffee.

He ate rapidly and as though very hungry; but the girl made only a pretence of eating. At last the man looked at her.

"We leave at once," he said. "We are to take the first boat for America. Are you not glad?"

"Very glad, father."

"Why is it you so love America, Kasia?" he asked.

"You also love it, father. It is the land of freedom—even for us poor Poles, it is the land of freedom!"

"The land of freedom!" he echoed. "And I love it, as you say. It is because of that I hasten back; I have in store for her a great honour, which will make her more than ever the land of freedom! For she is not free yet, Kasia—not for poor Poles, nor for poor Jews, nor for the poor of any nation. The poor cannot know freedom—not anywhere in the whole world. They must labour, they must sweat, they may not rest if they would live, for the greater part of what they earn is stolen from them. But I will change all that! Oh, you know my dream—no more poverty, no more suffering, no more cruelty and tyranny and injustice—but all men, all the nations of the world, joined in brotherhood and love! This day at dawn I struck the first blow for freedom! Do you know what it was, my daughter? Did you hear the roar of the waters as they opened? See!"

He caught her by the wrist and dragged her to the window.

"See!" he cried again, and pointed a shaking finger toward the black hulk in the harbour.

But she did not look. Instead she shrank away from him and pressed her hands before her eyes, and shook with a long shudder.

And after a moment, the light faded from her father's face, and left it old and worn; his eyes grew dull and moody; his lips trembled.

"Every cause must have its martyrs," he said, as though answering her thought, and his voice was shaking with emotion; "even the cause of freedom; yea, that more than any other, for the battle against tyranny is the most desperate of all!"

And dropping her wrist, he went slowly from the room.

CHAPTER II

FRANCE IN MOURNING

To M. Théophile Delcassé, Minister of Marine, and first statesman of the Republic, slumbering peacefully in his bed at Paris that morning, came the sound of urgent knocking. He sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, for he knew that not without good cause would any one dare disturb him at that hour. Then he stepped to the floor, thrust his feet into a pair of slippers, his arms into the sleeves of a dressing-robe, and opened the door.

"A telegram, sir, marked 'Most Important,'" said his valet, and passed it in to him.

It was from Vice-Admiral Bellue, commander at Toulon, and a moment later M. Delcassé had learned of the terrible disaster.

He ordered his carriage and dressed rapidly with trembling hands. He was shocked and distressed as he had rarely been before. Would these disasters never cease? First the Jena, now the Liberté—both ships the pride of their country, the last formidable word in marine architecture! He gulped down the cup of coffee which his valet brought him, seized hat and gloves, hastened to his carriage, and drove straight to the Elysée Palace.

The President was already up, and his broad face, usually so placid and good-humoured, was convulsed with grief as he greeted his Minister. He held in his hand a telegram, which he had just opened.

"See," he said, after the first moment, "the sad news is already abroad," and he held out the message.

Delcassé took it and read it with astonished eyes. It was from the German Emperor, and expressed his grief at the catastrophe, and his sympathy with France, which he had directed his ambassador to call at once in person to convey more fully.

"The Kaiser is certainly well-served!" muttered Delcassé, reading the message again, his lips twitching with emotion. "There is something ironical in this promptness. He must have had the news before we did!"

The President nodded gloomily. Then the other members of the cabinet came whirling up, and were convened at once by their chief in secret session.

Not many hours later, as a result of that session, a special train rolled out of the Gare de Lyon, and headed away for the south, with a clear track and right-of-way over everything. Aboard it were the President himself, the Minister of Marine, the Minister of War, and a score of minor officials. There was also a thin little man with white hair and yellowish-white beard—M. Louis Jean Baptiste Lépine, Prefect of Police, and the most famous hunter of criminals in the world; and in the last car were a dozen of the best men of his staff, under command of his most trusted lieutenant, Inspector Pigot.

At each station, as the train rolled on, great crowds gathered to meet it—crowds strangely silent, inarticulate with grief, furious, suspicious of they knew not what. Terrible rumours were abroad—rumours of treachery, of treason striking at the very heart of France. No one dared repeat these rumours, but nevertheless they ran up and down the land. The Jena and now the Liberté! True, the Board of Inquiry, which had investigated the destruction of the Jena, had decided that that catastrophe was due to the spontaneous combustion of the powder in her magazines. France had accepted the verdict; but now a second battleship was gone. It would be too much to ask any one to believe that this was spontaneous combustion, also! Such things do not happen twice.

And at every station telegrams were handed in giving fresh details of the disaster—horrible details. The ship was a total loss; of that splendid mechanism, built by years of toil, by the expenditure of many millions, there remained only a twisted and useless mass of wreckage; and in that wreckage lay three hundred of France's sailors. Small wonder that the President sat, chin in hand, staring straight before him, and that the others spoke in whispers, or not at all.

At Dijon, which was reached about the middle of the afternoon, there was a tremendous crowd, thronging the long platforms and pressing against the barriers, which threatened at every moment to be swept away. The President went out to say a few words to them, but at the first sentence his voice failed him, and he could only stand and look down upon them, convulsive sobs rising in his throat. Suddenly a little red-legged Turco, weeping too, snatched off his fez and shouted "Vive la France!" and the cheer was taken up and repeated and repeated, until it swelled to a vast roar. As the train rolled out of the station, the crowd, bareheaded, was singing the Marseillaise.

M. Delcassé's eyes, behind his heavy glasses, were wet with tears.

"It is the same people still!" he said, pressing the President's hand. "They are as ready to spring to arms as they were a hundred years ago. Now, as then, they need only to know that their country is in danger!"

His voice had grown vibrant with emotion, for the passion of his life was and always had been revenge upon Germany. He made no effort to conceal it or to dissimulate. Alsace and Lorraine were always in his thoughts. To placate Germany, indeed, France had once been