The Secret Power Part 21

Seaton laughed.

"Oh, that goes without saying! Did you ever hear of any scientist possessing a secret drawn from the soul of nature that was not called 'mad' at once by his compeers and the public? I can stand THAT accusation! Pray Heaven I never get as mad as a Wall Street gambler!"

"You will, if you gamble with the lives of nations!" said Gwent.

"Let the nations beware how they gamble with their own lives!" retorted Seaton--"You say war is a method of money-making--let them take heed how they touch money coined in human blood! I--one man only,--but an instrument of the Supreme Intelligence,--I say and swear there shall be no more wars!"

As he uttered these words there was something almost supernatural in the expression of his face--his att.i.tude, proudly erect, offered a kind of defiance to the world,--and involuntarily Gwent, looking at him, thought of the verse in the Third Psalm--

"I laid me down and slept; I awaked for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of the people that have set themselves against me round about."

"No--he would not be afraid!" Gwent mused--"He is a man for whom there is no such thing as fear! But--if it knew--the world might be afraid of HIM!"

Aloud he said--"Well, you may put an end to war, but you will never put an end to men's hatred and envy of one another, and if they can't 'let the steam off' in fighting, they'll find some other way which may be worse. If you come to consider it, all nature is at war with itself,--it's a perpetual struggle to live, and it's evident that the struggle was intended and ordained as universal law. Life would be pretty dull without effort--and effort means war."

"War against what?--against whom?" asked Seaton.

"Against whatever or whoever opposes the effort," replied Gwent, promptly--"There must be opposition, otherwise effort would be unnecessary. My good fellow, you've got an idea that you can alter the fixed plan of things, but you can't. The cleverest of us are only like goldfish in a gla.s.s bowl--they see the light through, but they cannot get to it. The old ship of the world will sail on its appointed way to its destined port,--and the happiest creatures are those who are content to sail with it in the faith that G.o.d is at the helm!" He broke off, smiling at his own sudden eloquence, then added--"By-the-by, where is your laboratory?"

"Haven't got one!" replied Seaton, briefly.

"What! Haven't got one! Why, how do you make your stuff?"

Seaton laughed.

"You think I'm going to tell you? Mr. Senator Gwent, you take me for a greater fool than I am! My 'stuff' needs neither fire nor crucible,--the formula was fairly complete before I left Washington, but I wanted quiet and solitude to finish what I had begun. It is finished now. That's why I sent for you to make the proposition which you say you cannot carry through."

"Finished, is it?" queried Gwent, abstractedly--"And you have it here?--in a finished state?"

Seaton nodded affirmatively.

"Then I suppose"--said Gwent with a nervous laugh--"you could 'finish'

ME, if it suited your humour?"

"I could, certainly!" and Seaton gave him quite an encouraging smile--"I could reduce Mr. Senator Gwent into a small pinch of grey dust in about forty seconds, without pain! You wouldn't feel it I a.s.sure you! It would be too swift for feeling."

"Thanks! Much obliged!" said Gwent--"I won't trouble you this morning!

I rather enjoy being alive."

"So do I!" declared Seaton, still smiling--"I only state what I COULD do."

Gwent stood at the door of the hut and surveyed the scenery.

"You've a fine, wild view here"--he said--"I think I shall stay at the Plaza a day or two before returning to Washington. There's a very attractive girl there."

"Oh, you mean Manella"--said Seaton, carelessly; "Yes, she's quite a beauty. She's the maid, waitress or 'help' of some sort at the hotel."

"She's a good 'draw' for male visitors"--said Gwent--"Many a man I know would pay a hundred dollars a day to have her wait upon him!"

"Would YOU?" asked Seaton, amused.

"Well!--perhaps not a hundred dollars a day, but pretty near it! Her eyes are the finest I've ever seen."

Seaton made no comment.

"You'll come and dine with me to-night, won't you?" went on Gwent--"You can spare me an hour or two of your company?"

"No, thanks"--Seaton replied--"Don't think me a churlish brute--but I don't like hotels or the people who frequent them. Besides--we've done our business."

"Unfortunately there was no business doing!" said Gwent--"Sorry I couldn't take it on."

"Don't be sorry! I'll take it on myself when the moment comes. I would have preferred the fiat of a great government to that of one unauthorised man--but if there's no help for it then the one man must act."

Gwent looked at him with a grave intentness which he meant to be impressive.

"Seaton, these new scientific discoveries are dangerous tools!" he said--"If they are not handled carefully they may work more mischief than we dream of. Be on your guard! Why, we might break up the very planet we live on, some day!"

"Very possible!" answered Seaton, lightly--"But it wouldn't be missed!

Come,--I'll walk with you half way down the hill."

He threw on a broad palmetto hat as a shield against the blazing sun, for it was now the full heat of the afternoon, while Gwent solemnly unfurled a white canvas umbrella which, folded, served him on occasion as a walking-stick. A greater contrast could hardly be imagined than that afforded by the two men,--the conventionally clothed, stiff-jointed Washington senator, and the fine, easy supple figure of his roughly garbed companion; and Manella, watching them descend the hill from a coign of vantage in the Plaza gardens, criticised their appearance in her own special way.

"Poof!" she said to herself, snapping her fingers in air--"He is so ugly!--that one man--so dry and yellow and old! But the other--he is a G.o.d!"

And she snapped her fingers again,--then kissed them towards the object of her adoration,--an object as unconscious and indifferent as any senseless idol ever worshipped by blind devotees.

CHAPTER XIII

On his return to the Plaza Mr. Sam Gwent tried to get some conversation with Manella, but found it difficult. She did not wait on the visitors in the dining-room, and Gwent imagined he knew the reason why. Her beauty was of too brilliant and riante a type to escape the notice and admiration of men, whose open attentions were likely to be embarra.s.sing to her, and annoying to her employers. She was therefore kept very much out of the way, serving on the upper floors, and was only seen flitting up and down the staircase or pa.s.sing through the various corridors and balconies. However, when evening fell and its dark, still heat made even the hotel lounge, cooled as it was by a fountain in full play, almost unbearable, Gwent, strolling forth into the garden, found her there standing near a thick hedge of myrtle which exhaled a heavy scent as if every leaf were being crushed between invisible fingers. She looked up as she saw him approaching and smiled.

"You found your friend well?" she said.

"Very well, indeed!" replied Gwent, promptly--"In fact, I never knew he was ill!"

Manella gave her peculiar little uplift of the head which was one of her many fascinating gestures.

"He is not ill"--she said--"He only pretends! That is all! He has some reason for pretending. I think it is love!"

Gwent laughed.

"Not a bit of it! He's the last man in the world to worry himself about love!"

Manella glanced him over with quite a superior air.