“Which one?” repeated Dr. Wurm in astonishment. “Why, surely there’s only one.”

“Our Japanese God,” smiled Baron Yanato blandly.

“The Orthodox Greek God, batushko, and none other,” contradicted the General, as red in the face as a turkey-cock.

“Buddha,” Mr. Kei said, and again dropped his lids, becoming the very counterpart of a dried-up mummy.

Sir W. O’Patterney stood up agitatedly. “Gentlemen,” he said, “kindly follow me.”

Thereupon the diplomats again proceeded to the council chamber. At eight o’clock in the evening His Excellency, General Buchtin, rushed out, purple in the face, and clenching his fists. After him came Dr. Wurm, agitatedly arranging his papers. Sir W. O’Patterney, regardless of polite usage, came out with his hat on his head: his face was deep red; M. Dudieu followed him in silence. Prince Trivelino walked away looking very pale, Baron Yanato at his heels with his perpetual smile. The last to leave was Mr. Kei, with downcast eyes, an exceedingly long black rosary sliding through his fingers.

This concludes the report which I. Sawitt published in the Herald. No official communication concerning this Conference was given out, except the one already mentioned relating to the spheres of interest, and if any decision was taken it was apparently of no great value. For already, to use the familiar gynæcological phrase, unforeseen events were shaping themselves in the “womb of history.”

XXI. The Telegram

CHAPTER XXI

THE TELEGRAM

SNOW was falling in the mountains. All night through it had come down in great silent flakes; nearly two feet deep of it lay there new-fallen, and still the white starlets of snow floated earthwards without a pause.

Silence lay over the forests, save that now and then a branch would snap beneath too great a load, and the sound would drive itself a little path through the stillness intensified by the snow.

Then it grew colder, and from the direction of Prussia came whistling an icy wind. The soft flakes changed into stinging hail hurling itself straight into your face. The fallen snow rose in sharp needle-points and whirled through the air. White clouds blew down from the trees, swirled madly above the ground, spun about, and soared up to the darkened heavens. It was snowing upwards from the earth to the sky.

In the depths of the forest the branches were creaking and groaning; a tree broke and fell with a crash, shattering the undergrowth. But abrupt noises like these were sundered and swept away on the whistling, booming, shrieking, rending, distracted howl of the wind. When for an instant it ceased, you could hear the frozen snow crunching shrilly under your feet like powdered glass.