 THE END OF TIME Jack Barron, young radio engineer at the Roth-Affle Radio Laboratories, and Protoge of Dr. Manthus, his host, laughed heartily. What a yarn you spin, doctor! he said. Write it for the movies. But it's true, insisted the older man. Something is paralyzing our time-sense. The final stroke will occur about daybreak. Bosh! You mean the earth will stop rotating? The stars blink out? Not at all. Such things have nothing to do with time. You may know your short waves, but your general education has been sadly neglected. The scientist picked up a weighty volume. Maybe this will explain what I mean. It's from Immanuel Kant's critique of pure reason. Listen. Time is not something which subsists of itself, or which inheres in things as an objective determination, and therefore remains when abstraction is made of the subjective conditions of the intuition of things. For in the former case it would be something real, yet without presenting to any power of perception any real object. In the latter case, as an order of determination inheriting things themselves, it could not be anti-sendant of things as their condition, nor discerned or insuited by means of synthetical propositions a priori. But all this is quite possible when we regard time as merely the subjective condition under which all our intuitions take place. There. Does that make it clear? Clear as mud, Grinned Baron. Kant is too deep for me. I'll give you another proof, Snapmanthus. Look at your watch. The other drew out his timepiece, slowly his face sobered. Why, I can't see the second hand, he exclaimed. It's just a blur. Exactly. Now look at the minute hand. Can you see it move? Yes, quite clearly. What time is it? Half past one. Great, Scott! So that's why you spun that yarn. Baron hoisted his six feet one out of the easy chair. It's way past your bedtime. Didn't mean to keep you up. He stared again at his watch as if it had betrayed him. It seems we just finished dinner. I must have dosed off. Nonsense, Snifmanthus. You arrived at eight o'clock, an hour late. You and I and my daughter had dinner. Then the two of us came in here. We smoked a cigarette or two. Now it's half past one. Do you need more proof? Your theory's all wet somewhere. The younger man protested with a shaky laugh. If my watch isn't broken, time must be speeding up, not stopping. That comes from depending on your senses instead of your intelligence. Think a minute. If the watch seems running double speed, that would indicate that your perception of its movements had slowed down fifty percent. Baron sank back into his chair, leaned forward, and gripped his curly black hair with trembling fingers. He felt dizzy and befuddled. June called the doctor. Then to the agitated youth he added, I wish my daughter when she comes in if you still think I'm crazy. As he spoke the door flew open, and a slim, golden-haired girl shot into the room like a motion picture character in one of those comedies which is run double speed. Jack's eyes could hardly follow her movements. She came behind her father and threw one slim arm about his shoulders. She spoke, but her usually throaty voice was only a high-pitched squeak. Can't understand you, dear, interrupted her father. Write it down. June is using a drug which I prepared to keep her time-sense normal, Manthus explained, as the girl's pen raced over a pad. That's why she disappeared after dinner. I wanted you to get the full effect. Now read this. The deadline is approaching, the girl's message read. You'd better take your injection now. It's two-thirty a.m. All right, prepare the hypodermics, directed the chemist. He had to repeat this in a falsetto voice before June understood. Take one for Jack, too. June went out at express train speed. Baron glanced at his watch again. The minute hand was moving with the speed at which the second hand usually travelled. Three-fifteen already. When he looked up, June was in the room again with two hypodermic needles. Quickly she removed her father's coat and made the injection. Let her fix you up, too, boy, unless you want to become a graven image, commanded Manthus. His voice, which started at the ordinary pitch, went up like a siren at the end as the drug took effect. Dazedly, Jack held out his arm. The sting of the needle was followed by a roaring in his ears like a hundred niagras. The room seemed to pitch in quiver. Staring down at the watch he still clutched, Jack saw the hand slow down and at last resumed their accustomed pace. Gradually the unpleasant sensation has died away. That was a close shave, commented the doctor, drawing a long breath. I wouldn't have waited so long, except that I wanted to experience the sensation of coming back from the edge of the infinite. Not very nice. Like being pulled out of a whirlpool. It's four-thirty now. Took us an hour to return to normal, although it seemed only minutes. We have an hour and a half before the end. June, have you noticed anything unusual on the streets? Yes, whispered his daughter. A usually-peakant face, pinched and white. I've been watching from the balcony. It's dreadful. The people creep about like things in a nightmare. Manthys tried to reassure her. On his face was a great sadness, which was, however, overshadowed by a greater scientific curiosity. There's nothing we can do for them now, he said, but we must learn all we can. Let's go down and watch the city die. They descended in an automatic elevator and hurried through the hotel lobby. The lights of Fifth Avenue gleamed as brightly as ever. The streets near the lower end of Central Park still were crowded, but such crowds. They moved with infinite languor. Each step required many seconds. Yet the people apparently did not know that anything unusual was happening. Many perhaps were puzzled because their watches seemed to be misbehaving, but this did not stop their conversation as they travelled home from theatres or nightclubs. Two white-haired men passed by, engaged in a discussion of business affairs. Their voices were pitched so low that they were almost inaudible to the trio of watches, while their gestures looked like the slow waving of the antennae of deep-sea plants. "'My God, man!' cried Baron, at last awakening from his horristric and silence. "'Why didn't you warn the world? This is criminal! If what you say is true, all these people will become rooted in their tracks at six o'clock, like creatures from the Sleeping Beauty.' I only discovered the danger a week ago while working out a chemical formula. This showed the strain he was enduring. It was a very delicate piece of work, having to do with experiments I'm making on chlorophyll. Quick adjustments, you know. I've done the thing before many times, but last week I couldn't mix the ingredients fast enough to get the necessary reaction. Puzzled, I made further experiments. The result was that I discovered my perception of time was slowing down. I tested Dune and found the same thing. There was but one conclusion. But the drug we're using, how did you hit on that? I recall that such drugs as hashish greatly speed up the time-sense. An addict is able to review his entire past life or plan an elaborate crime between two heartbeats, so I collected a small supply of the stuff. But hashish in large doses is deadly, and I've heard that users of it sooner or later develop homicidal mania, run amuck as they say in India. True enough, admitted the chemist. But Androv, the Russian, you know, recently worked out a formula to neutralize the deadly effects of the drug, but retain its time-expanding effect for medical purposes. I've added that to the pure drug. There isn't enough of it in New York to keep all these people normal for five minutes. Why should I have frightened the poor things? He relapsed into silence, and the others found no heart to ask further questions as they watched the coming of the end of a world. The procession of passes by had thinned somewhat by now. The streetlights had grown dim. There was a look of increasing puzzlement on the faces of people who remained. Something was wrong. They knew not what. Floating along the sidewalk, like a figure in a slow-motion picture, came a tiny tot of three. She was sobbing, great tears formed with painful slowness, and slid down her flushed cheeks. She's lost, exclaimed June. Here, darling, I'll find your mama. She picked up the child and looked up and down the street. The mother was not in sight. Automatically, she turned to a policeman who stood nearby. Officer, she said quickly, this girl has lost, will you? She stiffened and dismayed. The policeman was staring through her, as if his eyes had not registered her approach. Slowly, his gaze came into focus. A puzzled look came over his Irish face. He spoke. It was only a blurred rumble. What can I do for her, father? June cried, turning away from the officer in despair. She's dying, see? Couldn't we give her some of the drug? There's only enough for us, her father replied, firmly. But she'll be quite dead in an hour. I'm not so sure of that. Perhaps only in a state resembling catalepsy. Wim Swate. Jack, take her into the lobby, put her on a sofa there. Dawn was pailing the blue-black sky as the radio engineer returned. The streetlights fluttered fitfully, and at last died. The streets had become deserted, although groups still ledied slowly about the subway kiosks. 545, whispered Manthus, the end should come any moment. As he spoke, a white-guard street-sweeper who had been leaning on his broom at the curb ever since the onlookers had reached the sidewalk, decided to move on at last. With infinite slowness his foot came up. He poised, swung forward, then the universal paralysis overcoming him remained in a strangely ludicrous position for a moment before crashing downward on his face. As far as they could see in the semi-darkness, others were falling. A few, balanced with feet wide apart, remained standing like statues. Those who collapsed pried slowly for a time or two, and then were still. After the thudding of the bodies had ended, the silence became ghastly. Not an awakening bird twitted in the trees of Central Park. Not a sheep bleated in the enclosure. Except for their own breathing and the sighing of the wind, not a sound. Then a faraway clock boomed six notes. The noise made them start and turned pale faces toward each other. Come, said the doctor heavily, it's all over. We might as well go up. We'll have to walk. All the power will be off. Twenty stories. The lobby of the Hotel Lachison, on the roof of which the penthouse apartment was located, was empty now except for a few clerks and bell-boys. They sat with bowed heads before their grills or on their benches as if they had merely succumbed to the unpardonable sin of sleeping on duty, but they did not breathe. June clung to her father's arm as they crossed noiselessly over the heavy carpet. The city will be a charnal house when these bodies start to decompose. Baron hesitated. Shouldn't we get out of town while there is a chance? Manthus shook his head. No. I'm convinced these people aren't dead. They're simply outside of time. Which cannot affect them. If I'm not mistaken, they will remain just the same indefinitely. But there will be fires throughout the city. Not many. The electricity is off. The day is warm, so no furnaces are going. Not even a rat is left to nibble matches, for the animals must be affected in the same way that humans are. The world is asleep. After mounting interminable stairs, they regained the apartment and went out on the balcony. It was full daylight now, but not a smoke-plume trailed from tall chimneys. Not a bird was on the wing. Elevated trains stood on their tracks. Passengers and guards asleep inside. I still don't understand, muttered Baron. The sun comes up. The wind blows. How can that be if there's no time? Might there not be some plague? In a way you are right, boy. It is a plague which has paralyzed man's sense of time. You have become involved by not remembering Kant's axiom that time is purely subjective. It exists in the mind only. Int and space are the only ideas inherently in our brains. They allow us to conduct ourselves among a vast collection of things in themselves which time does not affect. But wait a moment. Granting that time is in the mind, rather than in the outside world, what will happen if the time-sense is paralyzed? Won't the effect be similar to hypnosis whereby a man is reduced to a cataleptic state? The thought-chain which usually passes ceaselessly through the brain is halted. Given that the engineers still look puzzled, Jane interposed. It's something like enchantment, she explained. The old legends are full of it. The Sleeping Beauty, Brunhilde, Rittvam Winkle—I'm convinced that in ancient times a few persons knew how to draw a ferry-ring about those they wished to injure or protect, placing them thus outside the reach of time and change. This has now happened the world over. Perhaps through some drift in the ether or germ in the brain. This is what we must find out so that we can solve the mystery and take steps to reawaken the world. Perhaps this will help, interrupted Manthus in his turn. As you know, all the great scientists, Einstein, Genes, Pavlov, are convinced that everything in the universe is a form of vibration. Even thought, they believe, operates somewhat like a very short radio wave. What if some agency, either inside or outside the universe, began interfering on the Thought Wave channel? Granting your supposition—Jack was on his own ground now—transmission would be impossible on that channel. Exactly. Well, that's what I am convinced is taking place. I'm a chemist, not an engineer. I've given you the lead. You'll have to do the rest. Do you think you might locate such interference? Possibly. I'll do my best. Fine. Of course, if it is coming from outside the stratosphere, as the cosmic rays do, then there is no hope. But if someone is broadcasting such a devilish wave from an earthly station, we may have a chance to stop it. Now, Baron my boy, he continued, dropping into more jovial tone and leading his friend into the laboratory. You'll have to get busy if you intend to keep us ticking. This equipment is at your disposal. He waved toward a newly installed shortwave radio transmitter. Here are storage batteries, all charged. He opened another door. I have a five kilowatt generator installed here. It is operated by a gasoline engine. If you need other equipment, you can raid the Roth-Affelt plant. Returning to the main laboratory, he indicated the work table set close to a great double window overlooking Central Park. Couldn't ask for anything better, could you? He smiled. Plenty of light and air, and a view of the city. Look, you can even see those poor devils lying around the Subwakiosk. His face became bleak. Then he shrugged and tried to throw off his depression. June and I will help you as much as we can. We can raid stores for provisions and hashish. Now, let's have breakfast. The next few days were filled with unending labour for the temporal castaways. From daybreak until far into the night, with radio receivers clamped over their ears, the three twisted dials adjusted rear stats and listened on long and shortwave bands. But the ether, which once appulsated with music and friendly voices, was now silent except for static. Makes me think of Sunday mornings when I was a boy, a month this once commented, only this is more quiet and gives me the jitters. There was a note of hysteria in his voice. Then the doctors' neves began to quiver in that manner. Barron always insisted that they all rest. During such recesses, they ate, played cards, and helped June with the housework. The younger man was continually amazed by the calmness with which the girl faced their desperate situation. Clad in a blue smock, which brought out the colour of her eyes, she flitted about the apartment, manufacturing delicious meals out of canned goods, and always having a cheery word when the others became discouraged. Yet she never would look out of the window. I can't bear to see those poor souls lying about like ragdolls, she explained. The only thing that keeps me sane is the hope that we may reawaken them. It was on the evening of the third day that Barron lifted the headset from his burning ears and admitted failure. We've explored everything but super shortwave, he sighed. I'll have to get equipment from the laboratories before we start on those. June nodded from where she perched on a high stool across the table. But Manfis did not hear. He was making delicate adjustments on his receiving set and listening with rapt attention. I've got something, he cried. Jack! June! Plug in on my panel. Someone is talking. It's very loud. Must be close. Instantly the others did, as he ordered, but were able to catch only the last inflections of a ringing voice. Then silence settled once more. What did he say? The youngsters cried in one breath. Couldn't understand. Some foreign language. The chemist was furious with disappointment. But I'd recognized that voice among a thousand. We must get in touch with him. Perhaps he can help us. God knows we need assistance. Quick, Jack! You're an expert. See if you can pick up a reply. Barron leaned over his instruments, heart thumping. The dreadful loneliness against which they'd been fighting was broken. Others were alive. Minutes passed and the evening light died away. They were too excited to strike a light. The boys crept out of the corners and surrounded them. At last a faint voice grew in their ears. But again, the words were unintelligible. Sounds a little like Greek, puzzled the girl, but it isn't. Barron adjusted the direction finder and made scribble calculations. Coming from the south-east and far away, he breathed. I caught a word then, grasped the doctor. Ganja it was. What does that tell us? Snapped Jack, his nerves jumping. Ganja is the Hindi word for hashish, that's all. My lord man, don't you understand? The station is in India. Those who operate it are using Andhra's solution as we are. I… Listen! shouted Jack. There was a grinding and clashing in the receivers. Then a new voice, harsh and strained with excitement, almost burst their eardrums. Beware! Beware! it screamed. Do not trust him. He is a devil and he has put the world to sleep. His mind is rotten with hashish. He is a demon from… There came a dull, crunching sound. The voice screamed and died away. In the darkened laboratory the faces of the three listeners stood out like ovals of white cardboard. What do you make of that? Stammered Barron at last. It looks as if the only persons alive, in New York at least, are hashish addicts, the most debased and murderous of drug fiends. The doctor stopped, his eyes dilating with horror. The junior crept close to him and threw an arm around his shaking shoulders. Can't you see? The time since expanded too. Like us they will be unaffected. But unlike us they use the pure drug. Hashish smokers are, without exception, homicidal maniacs, vicious criminals. God! Are they responsible for the end of time? queried Jack. I don't know. Perhaps some mastermind among them is at the back of it. Some engineering wizard who has succumbed to the drug so recently or who has such a strong constitution that his intelligence has not been destroyed. The little doctor dragged off his headset, disarranging his sparse grey hair. His face was tired and worn, but his jaw thrust forward pugnaciously. We're making headway, he cried. We know the probable author of the catastrophe is a drug addict, and that he is located nearby. We know he has no screw-pills, for the man who warned us undoubtedly was killed. And I'm convinced those extremely short-wave bands hold the secret. Let's knock off for the day. We look like ghosts. Tomorrow morning you and June get what equipment you need from across the river. I'll stay here on guard. You better raid a drugstore and get some more of our lifesaver too. It's listed under Cannabis Indica. The next morning dawned clear and cold. It was early October, and there was a chill in the apartment. Baron swung his legs over the edge of the Davenport in the living-room and stared out at the frost-covered trees of Central Park. The leaves were falling before the brisk wind and forming little eddying mounds over the forms of those lying about the streets. Jack shivered at the thought of the millions and millions of victims of the disaster who littered the earth. They seemed to accuse him of still being alive. Well, if Malthus was right, perhaps all could be revived before winter set in. June was singing as he and the doctor came to breakfast. Apparently she wished to forget the events of the previous night, so they laughed and joked as though they intended to go on a picnic rather than across a dead city. The hotel lobby was as they last had seen it when they descended. The bell-boys still nodded on their benches. A travelling salesman was hunched over a week old times, as if he would awake in a few minutes, glance about guiltily, and resume his reading. The child they had rescued still lay on the Daven. Her golden hair framed her cheeks like a halo. One arm was thrown above her head. She seemed ready to awake, though she had not breathed for days. It all makes me feel so lonely, whispered June, clinging to the engineer's arm. I want to cry or whistle to keep up my courage. Don't worry, Jack replied softly, patting her hand and speaking with more assurance than he felt. We'll find a way out. She squeezed his arm and smiled at him with new courage. For months, in fact ever since his first visit to the mantis apartment, Baron had admired the doctor's charming daughter. Although nothing had been said of love between them, they often had gone to a dance or the theatre together, while a firm friendship had been cemented. Now their closer association and the unflinching bravery which she showed was ripening this into a stronger bond. They went out into the crisp morning, stepped across the body of a street sweeper who lay in the gutter, and entered the doctor's automobile. Through the silent city they drove, Baron watching carefully to avoid striking stalled cars or grotesquely sprawling bodies. There was a tangle of wrecked automobiles in the centre of the Queensborough Bridge, and they were forced to push them apart to get through. While they were engaged in this arduous work, a drifting ferry bumped into a pier, shaking the dreaming captain into a semblance of life at the wheel. I used to like fairy tales, mind you, they're dreadful really. She clung to him like a frightened child. He drew her close and kissed her. I love you, June, he whispered, as though fearful that the sleeping drivers of the tangled cars might overhear. Don't be afraid. I'm not, now. She smiled through eyes filled with tears. I've loved you for months, Jack. Whatever happens, we have each other. He helped her back into the car and drove on in silence. At last the wrothuffle plant gloomed before them, forbidding as an Egyptian tomb. With the feeling that he was entering some forbidden precinct, Jack led the way to his office. Somehow without its usual bustle and bright lights it seemed alien. Once inside he forgot his hesitation and set about collecting equipment, clearly shaped neon tubes, reflectors, coils, electrodes. Soon there was a pile of material glinting on top of his desk. They were exploring a deep cabinet with the aid of a flashlight, and the strange clicking sound made them whirl simultaneously. In a corner of the room a deeper blot of shadow caught their eyes. Jack snapped on the flashlight. In the small circle of light a long cadaverous face appeared. Thin lips were drawn back over wide-spaced yellow teeth. Black eyes stared unwinkingly into the light. The flash wavered as the engineer tried to get his nerves under control. It's nothing, he assured the trembling girl. Unlike Watchman, caught as he was making his rounds, probably, don't get excited. He wet his lips. He's alive! screamed June. The eyelids! They moved. Yes, I'm alive! boomed a horse-voice. I thought I was the only man God had spared. Pardon me for frightening you. I was so thunderstruck. The stranger stepped forward. He was dressed in a long black topcoat, high collar and string tie. The clicking noise was explained when he rubbed his long white hands together, making the knuckles pop like tiny firecrackers. With Anselinski at your service. He smiled with what evidently was intended to be warmth, again showing those rows of teeth like picket fences. I suppose we're all here on the same mission to find a solution for the mystery of the world's paralysis. The apparition lit a long and bloated cigarette, and through the acrid smoke surveyed them quizzically. I'm Jack Barron, formerly on the staff here, and this is June Manthas, daughter of Dr. Frank Manthas, head of the chemical research department. The engineer winced as Anselinski unfolded his hand in a clammy grip. Ah, yes, I know the doctor by hearsay, a great scientist. He has a lovely daughter. Bowing deeply to June, as he let his BDIs wander over her face and figure. Perhaps we can join forces, although I must admit I have abandoned hope. It is God's will. He rolled his eyes toward heaven, then riveted them once more upon June. Why, certainly, Jack was striving to overcome his growing dislike. We'll be driving back in a few minutes. Would you care to come with us? No, the pupilless eyes skitted toward Barron for a moment. I know the doctor's address. I will come to visit you soon. Now I must be going. Anselinski turned as if to depart, then strode to the desk and look down at the mass of equipment. Ah, super short wave tubes. I see, very clever. His dexterous fingers lingered over them a moment. Then he bowed and was gone. The tube remained staring at the empty doorway. I wish he'd been dead, sleeping, whispered June at last, twisting her handkerchief with trembling fingers. He—I didn't like the way he kept looking at me. He seemed all right to me. Jack tried to fight his own prejudice. He's willing to help us. Might he not be one of the hashish addicts? Those eyes, the pupils were mere pinpoints, and those evil smelling cigarettes. Then why should he have offered to help, puzzle Jack? He could have killed us. Nevertheless, I hope we've seen the last of him. Are you about through? Let's get out of this awful place. He looked like a mummy. They drove back to the apartment, so completely preoccupied, that both forgot to obtain the drug which the doctor had requested. Yes, I've heard of him, Mantis said, after he had been informed of the encounter. A naturalised Russian. He used to do quite a bit of valuable work in various fields of physics, but he was some sort of radical—seems to me an old-fashioned anarchist, and not popular. He dropped out of sight several years ago, or presumed he was dead. They soon helped the new equipment installed, and again began exploring the wave-bands, beginning with the comparatively lengthy ones, and working down to those only slightly longer than light. It was tedious work, but all were, by now, as adept as Jack encoming the ether, and their task progressed rapidly. Despite the labour, however, nothing could be heard. There was only the universal, breathless silence. At times they moved to the commercial bands, and tried to pick up the stations that they had heard on the previous day, but even there they met with failure. By the evening of the third day, they had left the wave-bands which could be measured in metres, and were exploring those strange and almost wholly uncharted depths of the ether, which must be calculated in centimetres. There at last luck favoured them. It was Jack who caught a strange pulsating tone on the three centimetre band. It rose and fell, rose and fell, and then died away like the keening of a lost soul. Listen! He whispered, plug in here, I found something. Dune and the Doctor followed his instructions. Delicately fingering the coils, Baron picked up the sound again, only to lose it. Then it came once more. This time he followed it, as it changed to the five centimetre band. Back and forth it went, as though weaving an intricate and devilish web. What do you make of it? queried the Doctor at last. Don't know. Jack bit his lips. It's no natural phenomenon, I'll swear. Somebody's manipulating a broadcasting station of terrific power not far from here, and playing with that wave as a helmsman brings a sailing ship into the wind, and then lets her pay off again. What do we do now? The little chemist finding his theory apparently confirmed was a thalos. Could we wreck that station? Fat chance. The engineer laughed bitterly as he reached for a cigarette. Whoever has conceived that bit of hellishness is well guarded. The three of us wouldn't have a ghost of a show. What I can't understand is, no use talking about theories now, month this sat down, crushed. Dropping his head in his hands, he pulled his few hairs, as though that might drag out an idea. What's to be done? Do you realize that we hold more responsibility than ever man has held before? Caesar, Napoleon, they were pikers. We have to save a world. Silence greeted his outburst. The scratching of a match as June lit a cigarette sounded like an explosion. Then the smoke eddied undisturbed, while the three stared vacantly into space, trying to think. Couldn't we, the girl swallowed hesitantly as she realized her ignorance of radio engineering, couldn't we interfere with that wave? Interfere with the wave which already is breaking up the thought waves, cancel its power. Oh, Jack, you must know what I mean. With this dinky five kilowatt station, we couldn't reach Yonkers against the power they've got. By Jove! He leapt to his feet as a new thought struck him. Maybe we could just wake up New York, get out from the police then, smash that other station afterwards. But we don't know whether interference would break the spell, interpose the practical doctor. And it will take a lot of practice to follow that wave. He jumps back and forth like a grasshopper. And if we don't do it right the first time, whoever is operating that station will be down on us like a ton of brick, admitted Jack. Let's get the child we saved, suggested June. We can bring her up here. Then we'll only need a little power, just enough to be effective in this room to bring her to life if we can. They wouldn't hear our wave. Great! Jack bent over and kissed her. You're a real help. I'll be back in a minute. He dashed out. Soon they heard his step on the stairs and he reappeared, tenderly bearing his golden-haired burden. Now, June, he commanded briskly, place her in a comfortable position on the work table while I get ready. He began arranging equipment and connecting it with the bank of storage batteries. Shall I adjust a headset for her? asked the impatient doctor. Be yourself! Jack placed a crooked vacuum tube near the child's head and clamps two flat electrodes on her temples. This wave must act directly on the brain. The sense of hearing has nothing to do with it. All right, slaving beauty. He stretched the kinks out of his aching back. Let's see what we can do for you. Pardon me, doctor, if I seemed rude. This is ticklish work. Pick up the outside wave for me. Thanks. Now I've got our dinky sending station set on the same wavelength at a different frequency. It's adjusted so that as I keep in touch through this tuning coil, our wave will fluctuate over the same path as the other. It should take six or eight hours to overcome the effect on her, I judge. Here we go. June, you better get yourself and your dad some food. Doctor, you examine the kid from time to time. In an hour or so, June can relieve me. He pressed a switch. The tubes filled with a green glow. Two hours passed, and the sun was sinking behind the trees of the park in a bloody haze when Jack at last signalled for June to handle the dials. For a time, he guided her slim fingers. Then, as she caught the trick, he rose and stretched his cramped muscles. Don't lose the wave for a moment, or we'll have to start all over again, he warned, now for dinner. She nodded and, frowning slightly, bent over the dials. At that moment there came a heavy knock on the apartment door. Who's that? gasped Manthus, his face turning gray. Probably Solinsky, replied Jack, feeling his spine crawl as he remembered the moldy Russian. Find time to choose for a visit. Shall I let him in? Don't see what else there is to do. Good evening, cried their guest, as Manthus opened the door. Ah, Dr. Manthus, I believe. I have heard so much about your work. His horse, yet ringing voice, made the little man start violently, and caused June to shake her head in annoyance, as the sound interfered with the humming of the vagrant wave. Sorry I could not come earlier. Solinsky advanced into the laboratory, giving the effect of driving the chemist before him. Trying to revive one of the sufferers, I see. May God aid you in this noble work. He spread the tails of his long coat, and sat down. As he talked, his eyes flashed about the room, taking in every detail, and at last fastening on June's fresh beauty, like those of a vampire. Not, he boomed as he lighted a cigarette, not that I believe it possible. Catching an agonised glance from June, Jack interrupted. You'll have to speak softly, sir. This is ticklish work. I beg your pardon. The Russian lowered his voice, so that it squeaked, piercingly, like a rusty hinge. He wrung his hands audibly. Perhaps we better move into the living room, suggested the doctor, hovering in the background. There we can talk without interrupting. The guest unfolded, joint by joint, like a collapsible rule. Of course, if you think I'm spying, he grated. Not at all, protested Jack, although he longed to strike the brute across the face. It's just that the voices of certain pitches interfere. Surely you have seen radio operators go all to pieces when spoken to. Ungraciously, Solinsky allowed himself to be ushered into the outer room. Once there, he disposed his lean form on another chair. Unxiously refused a highball, and, forgetting his momentary anger, soon was deep in a scientific discussion of the problems involved in reviving the world. He mentioned the nearby radio station, but declared that he had been unable to locate it despite a careful search. Dismissing this, he turned to other topics, displaying a vast knowledge of all departments of scientific achievement, and, despite his depressing personality, holding his bearer's attention so closely, they forgot the passage of time until the clock struck ten. Time for daily injection, said the doctor. Do you use Andra of Solution II, sir? Naturally, replied the other, lighting one cigarette from the butt of another. Memphis hurried into the laboratory. A few moments later, he reappeared in the doorway, and called to Jack in an agitated voice. As the younger man joined him, he closed the door and turned a white face to him. The drug is almost gone, Memphis said. Didn't you obtain a new supply? We, I forgot, admitted Jack, feeling his own face grow pale. The shock of running across Solinsky at the laboratory upset me. Well, that's all right, then. It gave me a turn, but we have plenty of time. The doctor laughed shakily. Run down to the nearest drugstore. There should be a supply there. Better take a flashlight. He pushed open the door, then shrank back. Leaning against the jam was the Russian. His manner had changed subtly. His thin lips spread from ear to ear in a wolfish grin. His fingers clipped like castanets. Ah, you heard, so you have used up the last of your solution. What's that to you? The doctor was gripped by a cold, unreasoning fear. Only that you will be unable to obtain more. Since my first meeting with your daughter, I have had my men collect all the cannabis indica in the city. Your men? Memphis was thunderstruck. Certainly you old fool. Do you think I'm a bungling theorist like yourself? Who do you think is operating that short-wave station? I am. Who do you think put the world to sleep? I did. Who do you think will wake it? I will. Selinski's figure appeared to expand. He took deep drafts from his cigarette. The smoke seemed to impale some terrific force into his gaunt frame. So it was your voice I heard, cried Memphis bitterly. And those awful tales about you were true. A hashish smoker, a person whose mind is rotting in control of the world. He seemed about to leap at the other, and his chubby figure in that attitude would have seemed ludicrous if it had not been tragic. It shall not be, he shouted. Now see here, doctor. Selinski assumed a friendly tone. You're making a grave mistake. I have something to offer better than you ever dreamed of. What do you mean? Just this. How would you like to be assistant to the king of the world? Crazy already, sneered the doctor, squinting up at his tormentor. Crazy or not, when the world awakes, I will be its king. Why, damn you, I thought you were an anarchist and wanted to do away with kings and governments, splattered the little man. Selinski burst into a gale of fiendish laughter. An anarchist is merely a capitalist without money or power, he quoted. What do you want of us, demanded Memphis playing for time? Very simple. Just this. I intend soon to begin awakening those who will serve me, first in New York and then throughout the world. When I have a skeleton government built up, I will withdraw the wave and allow the people to revive. Clever, isn't it? Especially for such a madman as you think me. He snapped his fingers and leered cunningly at them. The doctor choked, but Jack's hand on his arm steadied him. You have a very beautiful daughter, presumed their diabolical visitant. Give my daughter's name out of this, cried Memphis, recoiling. Not at all. Her charm and ability have greatly impressed me, so impressed me that I have decided to make her my queen. You scum of the gutter, you filthy beast! I'd die before I'd be a party to such a thing. The doctor was beside himself. I consider myself justified, replied the other, taking great delight in baiting his foe. The world was never able to govern itself. We anarchists have bided our time. The blow overshadowed by communists, fascists, and other such ridiculous experimenters. Now comes our turn. I shall be the vice-roy of God. Under my rule and that of Queen June, the world shall become a second heaven." He rolled his eyes upwards at those words. As he did so, Jack, who had been awaiting just such an opportunity, struck him on the jaw. The blow would have felled an ox, but Selinski merely staggered back a step and snarled. When Baron could renew the attack, he jerked an automatic from beneath his coat and leapt to the hall door. You, I shall kill! he grinned evilly, but not now. First you must taste the horror of sinking into the long sleep. You have no more drug, nor can you obtain any. Those pitiful storage batteries will be exhausted by the time you have aroused the child, so you must sleep, unless you have the courage to kill yourself. Doctor, I deeply regret that this has occurred, but you see that I must let you and June sleep, too. When I have need of you, I will recall you. That is all. Farewell. May God pity you, Baron. I will not. He sprang through the door, and the tails of his black coat flapping like the wings of a gigantic bat vanished down the stairs. Manthus slammed the door and locked it, then leaned weakly against the panels and wiped his round face. His hands shook pittively. This then is the end. He whispered hoarsely. Is there none of the drug left? Jack shook him out of his lethargy. Enough for half a portion for all of us, said the doctor. But what use of that? Better we poisoned ourselves now and escaped that demon. Nonsense! A half portion means twelve hours of life. In that time I can rig up the big transmitter. Perhaps there is still time to revive New York. Solinsky won't know that we have a generator until we turn on the power. Quick! Poor June must be nearly frightened to death at our shouting. But they found the girl sitting tense and jubilant at the controls. Father! Jack! She cried as the door opened. It's working! I saw her move. This means we may be able to revive the world. Her face was streaked with tears. Her heart's beating, whispered the doctor, feeling the child's pulse. Slow but steady. She'll regain consciousness any moment now. No time to wait. Disregarding June's cry of protest, Jack stripped off the electrodes. We must get the big machine working. But the little thing will die again, cried June, throwing herself on her knees beside the tot. I didn't think you could be so cruel! Solinsky has cut off our drug supply, explained Mantis gently. He's operating the other station. Don't blame Jack. We must work fast. You mean that Russian is responsible for all this? Yes, child. But maybe we can defeat him yet. Don't lose courage. Now, I must go and prepare what's left of the drug. We're overdue for it now. Meanwhile, Jack was busy running leads from the generator room, connecting banks of tubes, stringing an aerial on the terrace. "'Twelve hours! Twelve hours!' he muttered. "'Just time to make it if the doctor's calculations are correct. June, hand me those pliers, but be careful of the wires. I haven't enough time to insulate them. When we start the dynamo, they'll be carrying twelve thousand volts.' "'But won't Solinsky and his men come back and kill us?' For the first time the full weight of despair descended upon her brave spirit. "'Probably. Does your father have a revolver? I—I think so. Find out.' Jack connected a loading-coil with deft fingers. Then go down to a sporting goods-store and get some ammunition. If there are any shotguns in the place, bring two back and plenty of bookshot shells. I don't think we're being watched yet, but if you're attacked, run for it.' Noting she looked hurt at his abruptness, he kissed her quickly. "'Sorry, darling. Every second counts. Run along like a good girl.' She smiled for the first time in a long while and patted his hand. When she returned, two shotguns and several boxes of shells held like wood in her bent arms. The generator was sparking merrily. The gasoline engine barked steadily and the vacuum tubes glowed green. Manthys came in at that moment and injected the remaining drug as Jack gave crisp orders. Automatically the engineer had taken command. "'I'll get things going and handle the dials until Selinski sends his rats down on us. June, you watch the street door. Run up at the first sign of an attack. After that you'll take my place and hold it, no matter what happens, until we succeed or are killed. The doctor and I will go downstairs when you come up, and hold them off or retreat slowly. Thank heaven we can command both the front and rear stairway from the halls. Now, doctor, watch the circuit breaker. I'm going to throw on full power." As he advanced the rear stat, the tubes glowed brighter, bathing the room in an unearthly light. Jack adjusted his headset and smiled up at June. She kissed him bravely before hurrying to her dangerous post. Once more he sat, listening to that whining, fluctuating wave. The engineer's thoughts wavered between speculations on the future, fond memories of June, and impatience with the dragging hours. Would nothing ever happen? Through the earphones now came a jangling, agonised wine, as if the two antagonistic waves were endowed with life and actually struggling in the ether. From time to time his glance wandered to the child, who, having obtained a head start through her preliminary treatment, now was stirring fretfully. Slowly the time plodded by. Jack smoked cigarette after cigarette in an effort to fight off the drowsiness which loaded his eyelids with lead. It must have been three o'clock when a whimper from the divan apprised him that the child had at last awakened. Where's Mama? She blinked into the glare. I've lost my Mama. There, there, honey, sued the doctor, stopping his pacing up and down the room and picking her up. Your Mama had to go away for a while. She'll be back any minute. Let's go find a drink of water, and I've something for you to play with, too. Gently he carried her into June's bedroom. Soon he reappeared and patted Jack on the shoulder. Our first victory, he said in a broken voice. She's in perfect condition, and sleeping naturally now. I gave her one of June's old dolls to play with. He sighed and collapsed into the nearest chair. I'm almost dead with the strain of it. Do you think there's a chance? Three more hours should turn the trick. I don't understand why Silinski—the crash of a shotgun, coming faint but clear from the street below, brought him up short. The shot was answered by a volley of rifle fire. Jack almost lost the wave in his excitement, but regained it with the desperate twist of the wrist. No time for nerves now. He must be calm. Go down and hold them until June can get back to relieve me. He ordered. Hurry! They may rush her any moment. The doctor seemed ten years younger as he thrust her revolver into his pocket, snatched a shotgun from behind the door, and ran out. The commotion had awakened the child, who started whimpering, adding further to Jack's distractions. Yet he managed, in spite of ghastly mental pictures of June being torn to pieces by her attackers, to keep his hands steady. A few minutes later she slipped into the room and laid her cold cheek against his before taking her place at the instruments. It's all right, she added. I don't think they'll attack in the dark. There are five of them. I'm sure I wounded or killed one. They weren't expecting our guard. I left the gun with father. He's behind the cashier's desk. Then all her courage evaporating, she turned an appealing little girl face toward her lover. Don't let yourself be killed, Jack, I'd die, too. June, you're wonderful, he whispered. I didn't know there was a girl alive as brave as you. Goodbye. No matter what happens, keep the wave in tune. He kissed her tenderly, trying not to think he had done so for the last time, and hurried out. The stairs were black as the inside of a tomb. Once he stumbled over the body of a child-woman and came near falling headlong. Nothing's happened since the first volley, whispered Manthys when Jack slipped into the cage. They're holding off for dawn. Look! His voice wavered. Was that a face at the window? He fired wildly. Glass tinkled. Easy! warned Baron. Don't waste ammunition. Besides, if you get this place full of smoke, they'll jump us. Dawn was painting the windows gray when the assault began. Their first warning came when a small object was tossed into the lobby. It exploded in a cloud of white vapor. Tear gas! yelled Jack. Back to the stairs! They ran for cover, weeping and choking. They began a slow retreat up the stairways, Jack guarding the front and Manthys the back passages. At first it was a simple matter for their enemies to toss tear-bombs through the fire-doors, then protected by respirators, capturing other floor. But as the light increased, this became more and more hazardous. Twice a spray of book-shot laid a salinsky man low. He hasn't many men available, called Jack as the attack slackened, but watch out, his time's about up. Hey! Look at that woman! A white uniformed maid, whom he remembered having seen lying in the same spot every time he had climbed the stairs, had stirred weakly, as though about to wake. It was their glance at the sleeping-form which undid them. When they looked up, both fire-doors were open, and helmeted figures were emerging from them. The shotguns roared. Two of their attackers collapsed, but the others came on. Before there was time for another shot, they were at close quarters. Standing back to back, Manthys and Jack clubbed their guns and held their ground. The fact that Salinsky and his men wore respirators handicapped them immensely, so that the two defenders kept a clear circle about them. One of the attackers, more daring than the rest, leapt forward to engage the engineer. He collapsed with a crushed skull. Then when victory seemed in their grasp, luck turned. At Jack's next blow the stock of his weapon parted from the barrel, leaving him almost defenseless. At the same time Manthys slipped and collapsed from a knife-thrust. Jack was left alone to face three enemies, and would have been killed within the minute had not Salinsky, recalling the little time he had left to stop the interfering wave, deserted his comrades and sprinted for the laboratory. The seeming defection of their chief threw the other two attackers into momentary confusion. Before they could recover, Jack knocked one out with the gun barrel, then came a flying tackle at the other. But he had caught a tartar. His remaining enemy was a gigantic negro. Recovering from his surprise, the latter lifted high a glittering knife to finish his disarmed foe. Jack snatched at the uplifted arm, missed, and revolver cracked. The hooded negro staggered, then crashed forwards. �Remember my pistol just in time,� gasped the doctor from the floor. �Don't bother about me. I'm all right. Stop Salinsky for God's sake!� Although his lungs seemed bursting, Baron turned and flew up the stairs. Being familiar with every turn he gained on the Russian and caught sight of the dreadful black coattails as his enemy burst through to the twentieth floor. The locked door of the apartment baffled him only a moment. Stepping back, Salinsky hurled his giant frame against the panels. They splintered and crashed inward. But the delay allowed Jack to catch up. He leaped on the Russian's back. Locked together they reeled into the living-room. For a fleeting moment Jack saw June sitting rigidly at the instruments. Her eyes were staring from their sockets, but her hands were steady. �I warned you to kill yourself!� Salinsky's voice rose in a screaming whisper through the respirator. �Now I will do it!� Displaying the strength of madness, he hurled Jack from him. Losing all control of his limbs, the younger man flew across the room and demolished the divan in his fall. But the thought of what Salinsky would do to June brought him back to the attack. The fury of their struggle wrecked the living-room. Both bled from numerous wounds. One of the Russian's bleak eyes closed under a well-directed blow, but otherwise he seemed unaffected. Jack grappled again, and realized his mistake as he was caught in a bone-cracking grip and forced into the laboratory. Baron felt a rib snap. A sweat of agony broke out over his body. Holding his enemy helpless, the invader worked his way toward the work-table. They bumped against it, making the equipment totter perilously. Salinsky released his grip, snatched a bottle of distilled water, and swung. Jack felt his head explode. The room went dark, but in his semi-consciousness he remembered he must not let the Russian reach that switch. As he slid slowly to the floor he grasped the other's legs. The drug-fiend tried to kick free, stumbled, struck the table with his hips. Throwing out his arms to regain his balance he plunged one hand among the naked cables which led from the generator to the transformers and tubes. A blinding flash of light and the scream of a soul in torment followed. As a nauseating odour of burning flesh filled the room the Russian was hurled backward like a rubber ball. He struck the window which overlooked the park, crashed through the large panel and fell. June sat as though hypnotised, forcing herself to manipulate those dials. Jack crawled to the window and watched the black body swoop downward like a wounded bird, the coat flapping like crippled wings. After what seemed like an eon it struck the edge of the subway kiosk, bounced like a rag-doll and sprawled across the pavement. Still Jack did not move. Through a haze of his own blood he stared, the fate of his enemy forgotten. All about the kiosk, bodies which had laid so still for the past week, were moving. The little figures, not much larger than ants from that height, yawned, sat up and stretched as though it was the commonest thing in the world to take a nap in the midst of Fifth Avenue. It was as if the last swoop of that bat-like figure had returned them to consciousness. The world is alive! The world is alive! Barron croaked wildly as he felt his senses slipping from him. We have won, June! We have won! End of The End of Time by Wallace West, recording by Megan Argo. He walked around the horses. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tabithat. He walked around the horses by H. B. Piper. This tale is based on an authenticated documented fact, a man vanished right out of this world, and where he went. In November 1809 an Englishman named Benjamin Bathurst vanished inexplicably in Utterly. He was en route to Hamburg from Vienna, where he'd been serving as his government's envoy to the court of what Napoleon had left of the Austrian Empire. At an inn in Pöleburg, in Prussia, while examining a change of horses for his coach, he casually stepped out of sight of his secretary in his fallot. He was not seen to leave the innyard. He was not seen again, ever. At least, not in this continuum. From Baron Eugen von Croet's Minister of Police to his Excellency the Count von Beuchtenvolt, Chancellor to his Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, 25 November 1809. Your Excellency, a circumstance has come to the notice of this ministry, the significance of which I am at a loss to define, but since it appears to involve matters of state, both here and abroad, I am convinced that it is of sufficient importance to be brought to your personal attention. Frankly, I am unwilling to take any further action in the matter without your advice. Briefly the situation is this. We are holding here at the Ministry of Police a person giving his name as Benjamin Bathurst, who claims to be a British diplomat. This person was taken into custody by the police at Pöleburg yesterday as the result of a disturbance at an inn there. He is being detained on technical charges of causing disorder in a public place, and of being a suspicious person. When arrested he had in his possession a dispatch case containing a number of papers. These are of such an extraordinary nature that the local authorities decline to assume any responsibility beyond having the man sent here to Berlin. After interviewing this person and examining his papers, I am I must confess in much the same position. This is not, I am convinced, any ordinary police matter. There is something very strange and disturbing here. The man's statements, taken alone, are so incredulous to justify the assumption that he is mad. I cannot, however, adopt this theory in view of his demeanour, which is that of a man of perfect rationality, and because of the existence of these papers, the whole thing is mad, incomprehensible. The papers in question accompany, along with copies of the various statements taken at Pöleburg, a personal letter to me from my nephew Lieutenant Rudolf von Taalberg. This last is deserving of your particular attention. Lieutenant von Taalberg is a very level-headed young officer, not at all inclined to be fanciful or imaginative. It would take a good deal to affect him, as he describes. The man calling himself Benjamin Bathurst is now lodged in an apartment here at the ministry. He is being treated with every consideration, and except for freedom of movement accorded every privilege. I am most anxiously awaiting her advice, et cetera, et cetera, croots. Report of Traukotseller, Oberwachtmeister Satzpilitzai, made at Pöleburg, 25th November 1809. After about ten minutes past two of the afternoon of Saturday the 25th of November, while I was at the police station, there entered a man known to me as Franz Bauer, an inservant employed by Christian Hauke at the sign of the sword and scepter here in Pöleburg. This man, Franz Bauer, made complaint to Statzpilitzai captain Ernst Hartenstein, saying that there was a madman making trouble at the inn where he, Franz Bauer, worked. I was therefore directed by Statzpilitzai captain Hartenstein to go to the sword and scepter in, there to act at discretion to maintain the peace. Arriving at the inn in company with the said Franz Bauer, I found a considerable crowd of people in the common room, and in the midst of them the innkeeper, Christian Hauke, in altercation with a stranger. This stranger was a gentlemanly appearing person dressed in travelling clothes, who had under his arm a small leather dispatch case. As I entered I could hear him speaking in German with a strong English accent, abusing the innkeeper, the said Christian Hauke, and accusing him of having drugged his the stranger's wine, and of having stolen his the stranger's coach and fore, and of having abducted his the stranger's secretary and servants. This the said Christian Hauke was loudly denying, and the other people in the inn were taking the innkeeper's part and mocking the stranger for a madman. On entering I commanded everyone to be silent in the king's name, and then, as he appeared to be the complaining party of the dispute, I required the foreign gentleman to state to me what was the trouble. He then repeated his accusations against the innkeeper, Hauke, saying that Hauke, or rather another man who resembled Hauke, and who had claimed to be the innkeeper, had drugged his wine and stolen his coach, and made off with his secretary and his servants. At this point the innkeeper and the bystanders all began shouting denials and contradictions, so that I had to pound on a table with my truncheon to command silence. I then required the innkeeper, Christian Hauke, to answer the charges which the stranger had made, this he did with a complete denial of all of them, saying that the stranger had had no wine in his inn, that he had not been inside the inn until a few minutes before when he had burst in shouting accusations, and that there had been no secretary and no valet and no coachman, and no coach and fore at the inn, and that the gentleman was raving mad. To all this he called the people who were in the common room to witness. I then required the stranger to account for himself. He said that his name was Benjamin Bathurst and that he was a British diplomat returning to England from Vienna. To prove this he produced from his dispatch case sundry papers. One of these was a letter of safe conduct issued by the Prussian chancellery in which he was named and described as Benjamin Bathurst. The other papers were English, all bearing seals and appearing to be official documents. Accordingly I requested him to accompany me to the police station and also the innkeeper and three men whom the innkeeper wanted to bring as witnesses. Traugottzeller Oberwachtmeister. Report approved, Ernst Hartenstein, Stutzpolizei, Capitan. Statement of the self-so-called Benjamin Bathurst taken at the police station at Perlberg, 25th of November, 1809. My name is Benjamin Bathurst and I am Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Government of his Britannic Majesty to the court of His Majesty Franz I Emperor of Austria, or at least I was until the events following the Austrian surrender made necessary my return to London. I left Vienna on the morning of Monday the 20th to go to Hamburg to take ship home. I was travelling in my own coach and fore with my secretary, Mr. Bertram Jardine, and my valet, William Small, both British subjects, and a coachman, Josef Bedeck, an Austrian subject whom I had hired for the trip. Because of the presence of French troops whom I was anxious to avoid, I was forced to make a detour west as far as Salzburg before turning north towards Magdeburg, where I crossed the Elbe. I was unable to get a change of horses for my coach after leaving Gera till I reached Perlberg, where I stopped at the sword and scepter Inn. Arriving there I left my coach in the Innyard, and I and my secretary, Mr. Jardine, went into the Inn. A man, not this fellow here, but another rogue with more beard and less paunch and more shabbily dressed, but as like him as though he were his brother, represented himself as the innkeeper, and I dealt with him for a change of horses and ordered a bottle of wine for myself and my secretary, and also a pot of beer apiece for my valet and the coachman to be taken outside to them. Then Jardine and I sat down to our wine at a table in the common room, until the man who claimed to be the innkeeper came back and told us that the fresh horses were harnessed to the coach and ready to go. Then we went outside again. I looked at the two horses on the offside and then walked around in front of the team to look at the two nigh-side horses, and as I did I felt giddy as though I were about to fall, and everything went black before my eyes. I thought I was having a fainting spell, something I'm not at all subject to, and I put out my hand to grasp the hitching-bar but could not find it. I am sure now that I was unconscious for some time, because when my head cleared the coach and horses were gone, and in that place was a big farm-wagon jacked up in front with the right front wheel off, and two peasants were greasing the detached wheel. I looked at them for a moment unable to credit my eyes, and then I spoke to them in German, saying, Where the devil's my coach in four? They both straightened, startled, the one who was holding the wheel almost dropped it. Pardon, Excellency, he said, There's been no coach in four here all the time we've been here. Yes, said his mate, and we've been here since just after noon. I did not attempt to argue with them. It occurred to me, and it is still my opinion, that I was the victim of some plot, that my wine had been drugged, that I had been unconscious for some time, during which my coach had been removed, and this wagon substituted for it, and that these peasants had been put to work on it and instructed what to say if questioned. If my arrival at the inn had been anticipated and everything put in readiness, the whole business would not have taken ten minutes. I therefore entered the inn determined to have it out with this rascally innkeeper, but when I returned to the common-room he was nowhere to be seen, and this other fellow, who is given his name as Christian Hauke, claimed to be the innkeeper and denied knowledge of any of the things I've just stated. Furthermore there were four cavalrymen, oolans, drinking beer and playing cards at the table where Jardine and I had had our wine, and they claimed to have been there for several hours. I have no idea why such an elaborate prank involving the participation of many people should be played on me, except at the instigation of the French. In that case I cannot understand why Prussian soldiers should lend themselves to it. Benjamin Bathurst. Statement of Christian Hauke innkeeper, taken at the police station at Polarburg, 25th of November, 1809. May it please your honour, my name is Christian Hauke, and I keep an inn at the sign of the Sardin Scepter, and have these past fifteen years, and my father and his father before me, for the past fifty years, and never has there been complaint like this against my inn. Your honour, it is a hard thing for a man who keeps a decent house and pays his taxes and obeys the laws to be accused of crimes of this sort. I know nothing of this gentleman, nor of his coach, nor his secretary, nor his servants. I never set eyes on him before he came bursting into the inn from the yard, shouting and raven like a madman, and crying out, Where the devil's that rogue of an innkeeper! I said to him, I am the innkeeper, what cause of you to call me a rogue, sir? The stranger replied, You're not the innkeeper, I did business with a few minutes ago, and he's the rascal I want to see. I want to know what the devil's been done with my coach, and what's happened to my secretary and my servants. Now he tried to tell him that I knew nothing of what he was talking about, but he would not listen and gave me the lie, saying that he had been drugged and robbed and his people kidnapped. He even had the impudence to claim that he and his secretary had been sitting at a table in that room drinking wine, not fifteen minutes before, when there had been four non-commissioned offices of the Third Ulans at that table since noon. Everybody in the room spoke up for me, but he would not listen, and was shouting that we were all robbers and kidnappers and French spies, and I don't know what all, when the police came. Your honour, the man is mad. What I have told you about this is the truth, and all that I know about this business, so help me God! Christian Hauck! Servant of Franz Bauer, in servant, taken at the police station at Pearlaberg, 25th of November, 1809. May it please your honour, my name is Franz Bauer, and I am a servant at the sword and scepter in kept by Christian Hauck. This afternoon, when I went into the in-yard to empty a bucket of slops on the dung-heap by the stables, I heard voices and turned around to see this gentleman speaking to Wilhelm Bike and Fritz Hertzer, who were greasing their wagon in the yard. He had not been in the yard when I had turned away to empty the bucket, and I thought that he must have come in from the street. This gentleman was asking Bike and Hertzer where was his coach, and when they told him they didn't know, he turned and ran into the in. Of my own knowledge the man had not been inside the in before then, nor had there been any coach or any of the people he spoke of at the in, and none of the things he spoke of happened there, for otherwise I would know since I was at the in all day. When I went back inside I found him in the common room shouting at my master and claiming that he had been drugged and robbed. I saw that he was mad and was afraid that he would do some mischief so I went for the police. Franz Bauer, his ex, Mark. Statements of Wilhelm Bike and Fritz Hertzer peasants taken at the police station at Perleburg, 25th of November, 1809. May it please your honour, my name is Wilhelm Bike, and I am a tenant on the estate of the Baron von Hentig. On this day I and Fritz Hertzer were sent into Perleburg with a load of potatoes and cabbages which the innkeeper at the sword and scepter had brought from the estate superintendent. After we had unloaded them we decided to grease our wagon which was very dry before going back, so we unhitched and began working on it. We took about two hours, starting just after we'd eat in lunch, and in all that time there was no coach and four in the in-yard. We were just finishing when this gentleman spoke to us demanding to know where his coach was. We told him that there had been no coach in the yard all the time we'd been there, so he turned around and ran into the inn. At the time I thought that he'd come out of the inn before speaking to us, for I know that he could not have come in from the street. Now I do not know where he came from, but I know that I never saw him before that moment. Wilhelm Bike, his ex, Mark. I have heard the above testimony, and it is true to my own knowledge, and I have nothing to add to it. Fritz Hertzer, his ex, Mark. From Stuttspilitziai Capitan earned Tartenstein to his Excellency the Baron von Krutz Minister of Police, 25th of November, 1809. Your Excellency! The accompanying copies of statements taken this day will explain how the prisoner, the self-so-called Benjamin Bathurst, came into my custody. I have charged him with causing disorder and being a suspicious person to hold him until more can be learned about him. However, as he represents himself to be a British diplomat, I am unwilling to assume any further responsibility, and am having him sent to your Excellency in Berlin. In the first place, Your Excellency, I have the strongest doubts of the man's story. The statement which he made before me and signed is bad enough, with the coach and four turning into a farm wagon like Cinderella's coach into a pumpkin, and three people vanishing as though swallowed by the earth. But all this is perfectly reasonable and credible beside the things he said to me of which no record was made. Your Excellency will have noticed in his statement certain illusions to the Austrian surrender and to French troops in Austria. After his statement had been taken down, I noticed these illusions, and I inquired what surrender and what were French troops doing in Austria. The man looked at me in a pitying manner and said, New seems to travel slowly hereabouts. Peace was concluded at Vienna on the fourteenth of last month, and as for what French troops are doing in Austria they're doing the same things Bonaparte's brigands are doing everywhere in Europe. And who is Bonaparte, I asked? He stared at me as though I'd asked him who is the Lord Jehovah. Then after a moment a look of comprehension came into his face. So you Prussians concede him the title of Emperor and refer to him as Napoleon, he said. Well, I can assure you that his Britannic Majesty's government haven't done so and never will. Not so long as one Englishman has a finger left to pull a trigger. General Bonaparte is a usurper. His Britannic Majesty's government do not recognise any sovereignty in France except the House of Bourbon. This he said very sternly as though rebuking me. It took me a moment or so to digest that and to appreciate all its implications. Why this fellow evidently believed as a matter of fact that the French monarchy had been overthrown by some military adventurer named Bonaparte who was calling himself the Emperor Napoleon and who had made war on Austria and forced to surrender. I made no attempt to argue with him, one waste's time arguing with madmen, but if this man could believe that the transformation of a coach and four into a cabbage wagon was a small matter indeed. So to humour him I asked if he thought General Bonaparte's agents were responsible for his trouble at the Inn. Certainly, he replied, the chances are they don't know me to see me and took Jardine for the Minister and me for the Secretary, so they made off with poor Jardine. I wonder, though, that they left me my dispatch case, and that reminds me I'll want that back, diplomatic papers, you know. I told him very seriously that we would have to check his credentials. I promised him I would make every effort to locate his Secretary and his servants and his coach, took a complete description of all of them, and persuaded him to go into an upstairs room where I kept him under guard. I did start inquiries calling in all my informers and spies, but as I expected I could learn nothing. I could not find anybody even who had seen him anywhere in Pearlabogue before he appeared at the Sword and Scepter, and that rather surprised me as somebody should have seen him enter the town or walk along the street. In this connection let me remind your Excellency of the discrepancy in the statements of the servant, Franz Bauer, and of the two peasants. The former is certain the man entered the in-yard from the street, the latter are just as positive that he did not. Your Excellency, I do not like such puzzles, for I am sure that all three were telling the truth to the best of their knowledge. Their ignorant common folk I admit, but they should know what they did or did not see. After I got the prisoner into safekeeping I fell to examining his papers, and I can assure your Excellency that they gave me a shock. I had paid little heed to his ravings about the King of France being dethroned or about this General Bonaparte who called himself the Emperor Napoleon, but I found all these things mentioned in his papers and dispatches which had every appearance of being official documents. There was repeated mention of the taking by the French of Vienna last May, and of the capitulation of the Austrian Emperor to this General Bonaparte, and of battles being fought all over Europe, and I don't know what other fantastic things. Your Excellency, I have heard of all sorts of madmen, one believing himself to be the archangel Gabriel or Mohammed or a were-wolf, and another convinced that his bones are made of glass or that he is pursued and augmented by devils, but so help me God, this is the first time I have heard of a madman who had documentary proof for his delusions. Does your Excellency wonder, then, that I want no part of this business? But the matter of his credentials was even worse. He had papers sealed with the seal of the British Foreign Office and to every appearance genuine, but they were signed as Foreign Minister by one George Canning, and all the world knows that Lord Castle Ray has been Foreign Minister these last five years, and to cap it all he had a safe conduct, sealed with the seal of the Prussian Chancellery, the very seal for I compared it under a strong magnifying glass with one that I knew to be genuine, and they were identical. And yet this letter was signed as Chancellor, not by Count von Böcktenvolt, but by Baron Stein, the Minister of Agriculture, and the signature as far as I could see appeared to be genuine. This is too much for me, Your Excellency, I must ask to be excused from dealing with this matter before I become as mad as my prisoner. I made arrangements accordingly with Colonel Keitel of the Third Ulans to furnish an officer to escort this man into Berlin. The coach in which they come belongs to this police station, and the driver is one of my men. He should be furnished expense money to get back to Pearlaberg. The guard is a corporal of Ulans, the orderly of the officer. He will stay with the heir Oberleutnant, and both of them will return here at their own convenience and expense. I have the honour, Your Excellency, to be et cetera, et cetera, and Tartenstein, Stuttspilitzai Capitan. From Oberleutnant Rudolf von Talberg to Baron Eugen von Krutz, 26th of November 1809. Dear Uncle Eugen, this is in no sense a formal report. I made that at the ministry when I turned the Englishman and his papers over to one of your officers, a fellow with red hair and a face like a bulldog. But there are a few things which you should be told which wouldn't look well in an official report to let you know just what sort of a rare fish has got into your net. I'd just come in from drilling my platoon yesterday when Colonel Keitel's orderly told me that the Colonel wanted to see me in his quarters. I found the old fellow in undress in his sitting-room smoking his big pipe. Come in, Lieutenant, come in and sit down, my boy. He greeted me in that love-party manner which he always adopts with his junior officers when he has some particularly nasty job to be done. How would you like to take a little trip into Berlin? I have an errand which won't take half an hour, and you can stay as long as you like, just so you're back by Thursday when your turn comes up for road patrol. Well, I thought this is the bait. I waited to see what the hook would look like, saying that it was entirely agreeable with me in asking what his errand was. Well, it isn't for myself, Talberg, he said. It's for this fellow, Hartenstein, the Stutz-Polizei Capitan here. Here's something he wants done at the Ministry of Police, and I thought of you, because I've heard you're related to the Baron von Kruitz. You are, aren't you?" he asked. Although he didn't know all about who all his officers are related to. That's right, Colonel, that Baron is my uncle, I said. What does Hartenstein want done? Why, he has a prisoner whom he wants taken to Berlin and turned over at the Ministry. All you have to do is to take him in, in a coach, and see he doesn't escape on the way, and get a receipt for him and for some papers. This is a very important prisoner, I don't think Hartenstein has any one he can trust to handle him. The prisoner claims to be some sort of a British diplomat, and for all Hartenstein knows maybe he is. Also, he's a madman. A madman, I echoed. Yes, just so. At least that's what Hartenstein told me. I wanted to know what sort of a madman. There are various kinds of madmen, all of whom must be handled differently. But all Hartenstein would tell me was that he had unrealistic beliefs about the state of affairs in Europe. Ha! What diplomat hasn't, I asked. Old Kytel gave a laugh somewhere between the bark of a dog and the croaking of a raven. Yes, exactly. The unrealistic beliefs of diplomats are what soldiers die of, he said. I said as much to Hartenstein, but he wouldn't tell me anything more. He seemed to regret having said even that much. He looked like a man who's seen a particularly terrifying ghost. The old man puffed hard at his famous pipe for a while, blowing smoke through his moustache. Rudy, Hartenstein has pulled a hot potato out of the ashes this time, and he wants to toss it to your uncle before it burns his fingers. I think that's one reason why he got me to furnish an escort for his Englishman. Now, look, you must take this unrealistic diplomat, or this undiplomatic madman, or whatever emblazers he is, into Berlin. And understand this," he pointed his pipe at me as though it were a pistol, your orders are to take him there and turn him over at the Ministry of Police. Everything has been said about whether you turn him over alive or dead or half one and half the other. I know nothing about this business and want to know nothing. If Hartenstein wants us to play jail-warders for him, then he must be satisfied with our way of doing it. Well, to cut short the story, I looked at the coach Hartenstein at place at my disposal, and I decided to chain the left door shut on the outside so that it couldn't be opened from within. Then I would put my prisoner on my left so that the only way out would be past me. I decided not to carry any weapons which he might be able to snatch from me, so I took off my sabre and locked it in the seat-box, along with the dispatch case containing the Englishman's papers. It was cold enough to wear a great coat in comfort, so I wore mine, and in the right-side pocket where my prisoner couldn't reach I put a little-leaded bludgeon and also a brace of pocket-pistols. Hartenstein was going to furnish me a guard as well as a driver, but I said that I'd take a servant who could act as guard. The servant, of course, was my orderly old-your-hand. I gave him my double-hunting gun to carry with a big charge of bore-shot in one barrel and an ounce-ball in the other. In addition, I armed myself with a big bottle of cognac. I thought that if I could shoot my prisoner often enough with that he would give me no trouble. As it happened he didn't, and none of my precautions except the cognac were needed. The man didn't look like a lunatic to me. He was a rather stout gentleman of past middle age with a ruddy complexion and an intelligent face. The only unusual thing about him was his hat, which was a peculiar contraption looking like a pot. I put him in the carriage and then offered him a drink out of my bottle, taking one about half as big myself. He smacked his lips over it and said, Well, that's real, brandy, whatever we think of their detestable politics we can't criticise the French for their liquor. Then he said, I'm glad they're sending me in the custody of a military gentleman instead of a confounded gendarm. Tell me the truth, Lieutenant, am I under arrest for anything? Why, I said, Captain Hartenstein should have told you about that. All I know is that I have orders to take you to the Ministry of Police in Berlin and not to let you escape on the way. These orders I will carry out. I hope you don't hold that against me. He assured me that he did not and we had another drink on it. I made sure again that he got twice as much as I did, and then the coachman cracked his whip and we were off for Berlin. Now, I thought, I'm going to see just what sort of a madman this is and why Hartenstein is making a state affair out of a squabble at an inn. So I decided to explore his unrealistic beliefs about the state of affairs in Europe. After guiding the conversation to where I wanted it, I asked him, What, Herr Bathurst, in your belief is the real underlying cause of the present tragic situation in Europe? What I thought was safe enough, named me one year since the days of Julius Caesar when the situation in Europe hasn't been tragic, and it worked to perfection. In my belief, says this Englishman, the whole mess is the result of the victory of the rebellious colonists in North America and their blasted republic. Well, you can imagine that gave me a start. All the world knows that the American patriots lost their war for independence from England, that their army was shattered, that their leaders were either killed or driven into exile. How many times, when I was a little boy, did I not sit up long past my bedtime, when old Baron von Steuben was a guest at Taalberg Schloss, listening open mouths and wide-eyed to his stories of that gallant lost struggle. How I used to shiver at his tales of the terrible winter camp, or thrill at the battles, or weep as he told how he held the dying Washington in his arms and listened to his noble last words at the Battle of Doylestown. And here this man was telling me that the patriots had really won and set up the republic for which they had fought. I had been prepared for some of what Hardenstein had called unrealistic beliefs, but nothing as fantastic as this. I can cut it even finer than that, Bathurst continued. It was the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga. We made a good bargain when we got Benedict Arnold to turn his coat, but we didn't do it soon enough. If he hadn't been on the field that day, Burgoyne would have gone through Gates' army like a hot knife through butter. But Arnold hadn't been at Saratoga. I know. I've read much of the American War. Arnold was shot dead on New Year's Day of 1776 during the storming of Quebec, and Burgoyne had done just as Bathurst had said, had gone through Gates like a knife and done the Hudson to join Howe. But Herr Bathurst, I asked, how could that affect the situation in Europe? America is thousands of miles away across the ocean. Others can cross oceans quicker than armies. When Louis XVI decided to come to the aid of the Americans, he doomed himself and his regime. A successful resistance to royal authority in America was all the French Republicans needed to inspire them. Of course we have Louis' own weakness to blame, too, if he'd given those rascals a whiff of grape-shot when the mob tried to storm Versailles in 1790 that have been no French Revolution. But he had. When Louis XVI thought of the Howits as turned on the mob of Versailles, and then sent the dragoons to ride down the survivors, the Republican movement had been broken. That had been when Cardinal Talirand, who was then merely Bishop of Autant, had come to the fore and become the power that he is today in France, the greatest king's minister since Richelieu. And after that Louis's death followed as surely as night after day, Bathurst was saying, and because the French had no experience in self-government their republic was fordoomed. If Bonaparte hadn't seized power somebody else would have. When the French murdered their king they delivered themselves to dictatorship, and a dictator unsupported by the prestige of royalty has no choice but to lead his people into foreign war to keep them from turning upon him. It was like that all the way to Berlin. All these things seemed foolish by daylight, but as I sat in the darkness of that swaying coach I was almost convinced of the reality of what he told me. I tell you Uncle Eugenet was frightening as though he were giving me a view of hell. Got in him all the things that man talked of, armies swarming over Europe, sack and massacre and cities burning, blockades and starvation, kings deposed, and thrones tumbling like ten-pins, battles in which the soldiers of every nation fought and in which tens of thousands were mowed down like ripe grain, and overall the satanic figure of a little man in a gray coat who dictated peace to the Austrian emperor in Schoenbrunn and carried the Pope away of prisoner to Savona. Madmen, eh? Unrealistic beliefs, says Hartenstein. Well, give me Madmen who drool spittle and foam at the mouth and shriek obscene blasphemies, but not this pleasant seeming gentleman who sat beside me and talked of horrors in a quiet cultured voice while he drank my cognac. But not all my cognac. If your man at the ministry, the one with red hair and the ball-dog face, tells you that I was drunk when I brought in that Englishman, you had better believe him. Rudy. From Kant von Böschenvalt to the British minister, 28th of November 1809. Honoured Sir. The accompanying dossier will acquaint you with the problem confronting this chancellery with art needless repetition on my part. Pleased to understand that it is not and never was any part of the intentions of the government of His Majesty Friedrich Wilhelm III to offer any injury or indignity to the government of His Britannic Majesty George III. We would never contemplate holding an arrest the person or tampering with the papers of an accredited envoy of your government. However, we have the grave as dark to make a considerable understatement that this person who calls himself Benjamin Bathurst is any such envoy, and we do not think that it would be any service to the government of His Britannic Majesty to allow an impostor to travel about Europe in the guise of a British diplomatic representative. We certainly should not thank the government of His Britannic Majesty for failing to take steps to deal with some person who, in England, might falsely represent himself to be a Prussian diplomat. This affair touches us as closely as it does your own government. This man had in his possession a letter of safe conduct which will find in the accompanying dispatch case. It is of the regular form as issued by this chancellery, and is sealed with the chancellery seal, or with a very exact counterfeit of it. However, it has been signed as Chancellor of Prussia, with a signature indistinguishable from that of the Baron Stein, who is the present Prussian Minister for Agriculture. Baron Stein was shown the signature with the rest of the letter covered, and without hesitation acknowledged it for his own writing. However, when the letter was uncovered and shown to him, his surprise and horror was such as would require the pen of a Goethe or a Shiller to describe, and he denied categorically ever having seen the document before. I have no choice but to believe him. It's impossible to think that a man of Baron Stein's honourable and serious character would be party to the fabrication of a paper of this sort. Even aside from this, I am in the thing as deeply as he is. If it is signed with his signature, it is also sealed with my seal which has not been out of my personal keeping in the ten years that I have been Chancellor here. In fact the word impossible can be used to describe the entire business. It was impossible for the man Benjamin Bathurst to have entered the in-yard, yet he did. It was impossible that he should carry papers of the sort found in his dispatch case, or that such papers should exist, yet I am sending them to you with this letter. It is impossible that Baron von Stein would sign a paper of the sort he did, or that it should be sealed by the chancellery, yet it bears both signed signature and my seal. You will also find in the dispatch case other credentials ostensibly originating with the British Foreign Office of the same character, being signed by persons having no connection with the Foreign Office or even with the Government, but being sealed with apparently authentic seals. If you send these papers to London I fancy you will find that they will there create the same situation as that caused here by this letter of safe conduct. I am also sending you a charcoal sketch of the person who calls himself Benjamin Bathurst. This portrait was taken without its subject's knowledge. And von Krutz's nephew, Lieutenant von Talberg, who is the son of our mutual friend Count von Talberg, has a little friend, a very clever young lady, who is, as you will see, an expert at this sort of work. She was introduced into a room at the Ministry of Police and placed behind a screen where she could sketch our prisoner's face. If you should send this picture to London I think that there is a good chance that it might be recognised. I can vouch that it is an excellent likeness. To tell the truth we are at our wit's end about this affair. I cannot understand how such excellent imitations of these various seals could be made, and the signature of the Baron von Stein is the most expert forgery that I have ever seen in thirty years' experience as a statesman. This would indicate careful and painstaking work on the part of somebody. How then do we reconcile this with such clumsy mistakes, recognisable as such by any schoolboy, assigning the name of Baron Stein as Prussian Chancellor, or Mr. George Canning, who is a member of the opposition party and not connected with your government as British Foreign Secretary? These are mistakes which only a madman would make. There are those who think our prisoner is mad because of his apparent delusions about the great conqueror General Bonaparte, alias the Emperor Napoleon. Madmen have been known to fabricate evidence to support their delusions. It's true, but I shudder to think of a madman having at his disposal resources to manufacture the papers you will find in this dispatch case. Moreover, some of our foremost medical men who have specialized in the disorders of the mind have interviewed this man, Bathurst, and say that, save for his fixed belief in a non-existent situation, he is perfectly sane. Personally, I believe that the whole thing is a gigantic hoax perpetrated for some hidden and sinister purpose, possibly to create confusion and to undermine the confidence existing between your government and mine, and to set against one another various persons connected with both governments, or else is a mask for some other conspiratorial activity. Only a few months ago you will recall there was a Jacobin plot unmasked at Cologne. But whatever this business may portend, I do not like it. I want to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible, and I will thank you, my dear sir, and your government, for any assistance you may find possible. I have the honour, sir, to be, etc., etc., etc., Berchtenwald. From Baron von Kritz to the Count von Berchtenwald, most urgent, most important, to be delivered immediately and in person regardless of circumstances, 28th of November, 1809. Count von Berchtenwald. Within the past half hour, that is, at about eleven o'clock to-night, the man calling himself Benjamin Bathurst was shot and killed by a sentry at the Ministry of Police while attempting to escape from custody. A sentry on duty in the rear courtyard of the Ministry observed a man attempting to leave the building in a suspicious and furtive manner. This sentry, who was under the strictest orders to allow no one to enter or leave without written authorization, challenged him, when he attempted to run the sentry fired his musket at him bringing him down. At the shot the sergeant of the guard rushed into the courtyard with his detail, and the man whom the sentry had shot was found to be the Englishman Benjamin Bathurst. He had been hit in the chest with an ounce ball and died before the doctor could arrive and without recovering consciousness. An investigation revealed that the prisoner, who was confined to the third floor of the building, had fashioned a rope from his bedding, his bed-cord, and the leather strap of his bell-pull. This rope was only long enough to reach to the window of the office on the second floor directly below, but he managed to enter this by kicking the glass out of the window. I'm trying to find out how he could do this without being heard. I can assure you that somebody is going to smart for this night's work. As for the sentry he acted within his orders. I have commended him for doing his duty and for good shooting, and I assume full responsibility for the death of the prisoner at his hands. I have no idea why the self-so-called Benjamin Bathurst, who until now was well-behaved and seemed to take his confinement philosophically, should suddenly make this rash and fatal attempt, unless it was because of those infernal dunderheads of madhouse doctors who have been bothering him. Only this afternoon they deliberately handed him a bundle of newspapers, Prussian, Austrian, French, and English, all dated within the last month. They wanted, they said, to see how he would react. Well, God pardon them they found out. What do you think should be done about giving the body burial? Crits. From the British minister to the Count von Berctonvault, December the 20th, 1809. My dear Count von Berctonvault, reply from London to my letter of the twenty-eighth, which accompanied the dispatch case in the other papers, has finally come to hand. The papers which you wanted returned, the copies of the statements taken at Perleburg, the letter to the baron von Crits from the police-captain Hartenstein, and the personal letter of Crits's nephew, Lieutenant von Talberg, and the letter of safe conduct found in the dispatch case accompanied herewith. I don't know what the people at Whitehall did with the other papers, tossed them into the nearest fire, for my guess. Were I in your place, that's where the papers I am returning would go. I have heard nothing yet from my dispatch of the twenty-ninth concerning the death of the man who called himself Benjamin Bathurst, but I doubt very much if any official notice will ever be taken of it. Your government had a perfect right to detain the fellow, and that being the case, he attempted to escape at his own risk. After all, sentries are not required to carry loaded muskets in order to discourage them from putting their hands in their pockets. To hazard a purely unofficial opinion I should not imagine that London is very much dissatisfied with this denouement. His Majesty's government are a hard-headed and matter-of-fact set of gentry who do not relish mysteries, least of all mysteries whose solution may be more disturbing than the original problem. This is entirely confidential, but those papers which were in that dispatch case kicked up the devil's own row in London, with half the government big-wigs protesting their innocence to high heaven, and the rest accusing one another of complicity in the hoax. If that was somebody's intention it was literally a howling success. For a while it was even feared that there would be questions in Parliament, but eventually the whole vexatious business was hutched. You may tell Count Tauberg's son that his little friend is a most talented young lady, her sketch was highly commended by no less an authority than Sir Thomas Lawrence, and here comes the most bedeviling part of a thoroughly bedeviled business. The picture was instantly recognized. It is a very fair likeness of Benjamin Bathurst, or should I say Sir Benjamin Bathurst, who is King's Lieutenant Governor for the Crown Colony of Georgia. As Sir Thomas Lawrence did his portrait a few years back, he is in an excellent position to criticise the work of Lieutenant von Tauberg's young lady. However, Sir Benjamin Bathurst was known to have been in Savannah, attending to the duties of his office, and in the public eye all the while that his stubble was in Prussia. Sir Benjamin does not have a twin brother. It has been suggested that this fellow might be a half-brother, but as far as I know there is no justification for this theory. The General Bonaparte, alias the Emperor Napoleon, who is given so much mention in the dispatchers, seems also to have a counterpart in actual life. There is, in the French army, a Colonel of Artillery by that name, a Corsican who galicised his original name of Napoleone Bonaparte. He is a most brilliant military theoretician. I am sure some of your own officers, like General Scharnhorst, could tell you about him. His loyalty to the French monarchy has never been questioned. This same correspondence, to fact, seems to crop up everywhere in that amazing collection of pseudo-dispatchers and pseudo-state papers. The United States of America, you will recall, was the style by which the rebellious colonies refer to themselves in the Declaration of Philadelphia. The James Madison, who is mentioned as the current President of the United States, is now living in exile in Switzerland. His alleged predecessor in office, Thomas Jefferson, was the author of the rebel declaration. After the defeat of the rebels, he escaped to Havana and died several years ago in the Principality of Lichtenstein. I was quite amused to find our old friend Cardinal Tallerand, without the ecclesiastical title, cast in the role of chief advisor to the usurper Bonaparte. His eminence, I have always thought, is the sort of fellow who would land on his feet on top of any heap, and who would as little scruple to be Prime Minister to his Satanic majesty as to his most Christian majesty. I was baffled, however, by one name frequently mentioned in these fantastic papers. This was the English general Wellington. I haven't the least idea who this person might be. I have the honour, your excellency, etc., etc., etc., Sir Arthur Wellersley. And if he walked around the horses by H.Beam Piper.