Mary Godolphin - "The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable"

E. Phillips Oppenheim - "The Tempting of Tavernake"

George MacDonald - "The Seaboard Parish Volume 1"

Upton Sinclair - "100%: The Story of a Patriot"

The Secret Power

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Secret Power




"Well!--you are a senator, and you ought to know!" replied Seaton--
"And if your opinion is against my offer, I will not urge you to
make it. But--as I live and stand here talking to you, you may bet
every dollar you possess that if neither the United States nor any
other government will accept the chance I give it of holding the
nations like dogs in leash, I'll hold them myself! I! One single
unit of the overteeming millions! Yes, Mr. Senator Gwent, I swear
it! I'll be master of the world!"




CHAPTER XII


Gwent was silent. With methodical care he flicked off the burnt end
of his cigar and watched it where it fell, as though it were
something rare and curious. He wanted a few minutes to think. He
gave a quick upward glance at the tall athletic figure above him,
with its magnificent head and flashing eyes,--and the words "I'll be
master of the world" gave him an unpleasant thrill. One man on the
planet with power to destroy nations seemed quite a fantastic idea--
yet science made it actually possible! He bethought himself of a
book he had lately read concerning radio-activity, in which he had
been struck by the following passage--"Radio-activity is an
explosion of great violence; the energy exerted is millions of times
more powerful than the highest explosive substance yet made in our
laboratories; one bomb loaded with such energy would be equal to
millions of bombs of the same size and energy as used in the
trenches. One's mind stands aghast at the thought of what could be
possible if such power were used for destructive purposes; a single
aeroplane could carry sufficient to annihilate a whole army, or lay
the biggest city in ruins with the death of all its inhabitants."
The writer of the book in question had stated that, so far, no means
had been found of conserving and concentrating this tremendous force
for such uses,--but Gwent, looking at Roger Seaton, said within
himself--"He's got it!" And this impression, urging itself strongly
in on his brain, was sufficiently startling to give him a touch of
what is called "nerves."

After a considerably long pause he said, slowly--"Well, 'master of
the world' is a pretty tall order! Now, look here, Seaton--you're a
plain, straight man, and so am I, as much as my business will let
me. What are you after, anyway? What is your aim and end? You say
you don't want money--yet money is the chief goal of all men's
ambition. You don't care for fame, though you could have it for the
lifting of a finger, and I suppose you don't want love--"

Seaton laughed heartily, pushing back with a ruffling hand the thick
hair from his broad open brow.

"All three propositions are nil to me"--he said--"I suppose it is
because I can have them for the asking! And what satisfaction is
there in any one of them? A man only needs one dinner a day, a place
to sleep in and ordinary clothes to wear--very little money is
required for the actual necessaries of life--enough can be earned by
any day-labourer. As for fame--whosoever reads the life of even one
'famous' man will never be such a fool as to wish for the capricious
plaudits of a fool-public. And love!--love does not exist--not what
_I_ call love!"

"Oh! May I have your definition?"

"Why yes!--of course you may! Love, to my thinking, means complete
harmony between two souls--like two notes that make a perfect chord.
The man must feel that he can thoroughly trust and reverence the
woman,--the woman must feel the same towards the man. And the sense
of 'reverence' is perhaps the best and most binding quality. But
nowadays what woman will you find worth reverence?--what man so free
from drink and debauchery as to command it? The human beings of our
day are often less respectable than the beasts! I can imagine love,-
-what it might be--what it should be--but till we have a very
different and more spiritualised world, the thing is impossible."

Again, Gwent was silent for some minutes. Then he said--

"Apparently the spirit of destructiveness is strong in you. As
'master of the world'--to quote your own words, I presume that in
the event of a nation or nations deciding on war, you would give
them a time-limit to consider and hold conference, with their
allies--and then--if they were resolved to begin hostilities--"

"Then I could--and WOULD--wipe them off the face of the earth in
twenty-four hours!" said Seaton, calmly--"From nations they should
become mere dust-heaps! War makes its own dust-heaps, but with
infinitely more cost and trouble--the way of exit I offer would be
cheap in comparison!"

Gwent smiled a grim smile.

"Well, I come back to my former question"--he said--"Suppose the
occasion arose, and you did all this, what pleasure to yourself do
you foresee?"

"The pleasure of clearing the poor old earth of some of its
pestilential microbes!"--answered Seaton, "Something of the same
thankful satisfaction Sir Ronald Ross must have experienced when he
discovered the mosquito-breeders of yellow fever and malaria, and
caused them to be stamped out. The men who organise national
disputes are a sort of mosquito, infecting their fellow-creatures
with perverted mentality and disease,--they should be exterminated."

"Why not begin with the newspaper offices?" suggested Gwent--"The
purlieus of cheap journalism are the breeding-places of the human
malaria-mosquito."

"True! And it wouldn't be a bad idea to stamp them out," here Seaton
threw back his head with the challenging gesture which was
characteristic of his temperament--"But what is called 'the liberty
of the press'(it should be called 'the license of the press') is
more of an octopus than a mosquito. Cut off one tentacle, it grows
another. It's entirely octopus in character, too,--it only lives to
fill its stomach."

"Oh, come, come!" and Gwent's little steely eyes sparkled--"It's the
'safe-guard of nations' don't you know?--it stands for honest free
speech, truth, patriotism, justice--"

"Good God!" burst out Seaton, impatiently--"When it does, then the
'new world' about which men talk so much may get a beginning!
'Honest free speech--truth!' Why, modern journalism is one GREAT LIE
advertised on hoardings from one end of the world to the other!"

"I agree!" said Gwent--"And there you have the root and cause of
war! No need to exterminate nations with your destructive stuff,--
you should get at the microbes who undermine the nations first. When
you can do THAT, you will destroy the guilty and spare the
innocent,--whereas your plan of withering a nation into a dust-heap
involves the innocent along with the guilty."

"War does that,"--said Seaton, curtly.

"It does. And your aim is to do away with all chance or possibility
of war for ever. Good! But you need to attack the actual root of the
evil."

Seaton's brow clouded into a frown.

"You're a careful man, Gwent,"--he said--"And, in the main, you are
right. I know as well as you do that the license of the press is the
devil's finger in the caldron of affairs, stirring up strife between
nations that would probably be excellent friends and allies, if it
were not for this 'licensed' mischief. But so long as the mob read
the lies, so long will the liars flourish. And my argument is that
if any two peoples are so brainless as to be led into war by their
press, they are not fit to live--no more fit than the mosquitoes
that once made Panama a graveyard."

Gwent smoked leisurely, regarding his companion with unfeigned
interest.

"Apparently you haven't much respect for life?" he said.

"Not when it is diseased life--not when it is perverted life;"--
returned Seaton--"Then it is mere deformity and encumbrance. For
life itself in all its plenitude, health and beauty I have the
deepest, most passionate respect. It is the outward ray or reflex of
the image of God--"

"Stop there!" interrupted Gwent--"You believe in God?"

"I do,--most utterly! That is to say I believe in an all-pervading
Mind originating and commanding the plan of the Universe. We talk of
'ions' and 'electrons'--but we are driven to confess that a Supreme
Intelligence has the creation of electrons, and directs them as to
the formation of all existing things. To that Mind--to that
Intelligence--I submit my soul! And I do NOT believe that this
Supreme Mind desires evil or sorrow,--we create disaster ourselves,
and it is ourselves that must destroy it, We are given free-will--if
we 'will' to create disease, we must equally 'will' to exterminate
it by every means in our power."

"I think I follow you"--said Gwent, slowly--"But now, as regards
this Supreme Intelligence, I suppose you will admit that the plan of
creation is a dual sort of scheme--that is to say 'male and female
created He them'?"

"Why, of course!" and Seaton smiled--"The question is superfluous!"

"I asked it," went on Gwent--"because you seem to eliminate the
female element from your life altogether. Therefore, so I take it,
you are not at your full strength, either as a scientist or
philosopher. You are a kind of eagle, trying to fly high on one
wing. You'll need the other! There, don't look at me in that savage
way! I'm merely making my own comments on your position,--you
needn't mind them. I want to get out of the tangle-up of things you
have suggested. You fancy it would be easy to get the United States
Government to purchase your discovery and pledge themselves to use
it on occasion for the complete wiping out of a nation,--any nation-
-that decided to go to war,--and, failing their acceptance, or the
acceptance of any government on these lines, you purpose doing the
deed yourself. Well!--I can tell you straight away it's no use my
trying to negotiate such a business, The inhumanity of it is to
palpable."

"What of the inhumanity of war?" asked Seaton.

"That PAYS!" replied Gwent, with emphasis--"You don't, or won't,
seem to recognise that blistering fact! The inhumanity of war pays
everybody concerned in it except the fellows who fight to order.
They are the 'raw material.' They get used up. YOUR business
WOULDN'T 'pay.' And what won't 'pay' is no good to anybody in this
present sort of world."

Seaton, still standing erect, bent his eyes on the lean hard
features of his companion with eloquent scorn.

"So! Everything must be measured and tested by money!" he said--"And
yet you senators talk of reform!--of a 'new' world!--of a higher
code of conduct between man and man--"

"Yes, we talk"--interrupted Gwent--"But we don't mean what we say!--
we should never think of meaning it!"

"'Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!'" quoted Seaton with passionate
emphasis.

"Just so! The Lord Christ said it two thousand years ago, and it's
true to-day! We haven't improved!"

With an impatient movement, Seaton strode to the door of his hut and
looked out at the wide sky,--then turned back again. Gwent watched
him critically.

"After all," he said, "It isn't as if you wanted anything of
anybody. Money is no object of yours. If it were I should advise
your selling your discovery to Morgana Royal,--she'd buy it--and, I
tell you what!--SHE'D USE IT!"

"Thanks!" and Seaton nodded curtly--"I can use it myself!"

"True!" And Gwent looked interestedly at his dwindling Havana--"You
can!" There followed a pause during which Gwent thought of the
strange predicament in which the world might find itself, under the
scientific rule of one man who had it in his power to create a
terrific catastrophe without even "showing his hand." "Anyway,
Seaton, you surely want to make something out of life for yourself,
don't you?"

"What IS there to be made out of it?" he asked.

"Well!-happiness--the physical pleasure of living--"

"I AM happy"--declared Seaton--"and I entirely appreciate the
physical pleasure of living. But I should be happier and better
pleased with life if I could rid the earth of some of its mischief,
disease and sorrow--"

"How about leaving that to the Supreme Intelligence?" interposed
Gwent.

"That's just it! The Supreme Intelligence led me to the discovery I
have made--and I feel that it has been given into my hands for a
purpose. Gwent, I am positive that this same Supreme Intelligence
expects his creature, Man, to help Him in the evolvement and work of
the Universe! It is the only reasonable cause for Man's existence.
We must help, not hinder, the scheme of which we are a part. And
wherever hindrance comes in we are bound to remove and destroy it!"

The last ash of Gwent's cigar fell to the floor, and Gwent himself
rose from his chair.

"Well, I suppose we've had our talk out"--he said; "I came here
prepared to offer you a considerable sum for your discovery--but I
can't go so far as a Government pledge. So I must leave you to it.
You know"--here he hesitated--"you know a good many people would
consider you mad--"

Seaton laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seaton laughed.

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

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

Seaton nodded affirmatively.

"Then I suppose"--said Gwent with a nervous laugh--"you could
'finish' ME, if it suited your humour?"

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

"Thanks! Much obliged!" said Gwent--"I won't trouble you this
morning! I rather enjoy being alive."

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

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

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

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

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

"Would YOU?" asked Seaton, amused.

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

Seaton made no comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Very possible!" answered Seaton, lightly--"But it wouldn't be
missed! Come,--I'll walk with you half way down the hill."

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

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

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




CHAPTER XIII


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

"You found your friend well?" she said.

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

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

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

Gwent laughed.

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

Manella glanced him over with quite a superior air.

"Ah, perhaps you do not know!" And she waved her hands expressively.
"There was a wonderful lady came here to see him some weeks ago--she
stole up the hill at night, like a spirit--a little, little fairy
woman with golden hair--"

Gwent pricked up his ears and stood at attention.

"Yes? Really? You don't say so! 'A little fairy woman'? Sounds like
a story!"

"She wore the most lovely clothes"--went on Manella, clasping her
hands in ecstasy--"She stayed at the Plaza one night--I waited upon
her. I saw her in her bed--she had skin like satin, and eyes like
blue stars--her hair fell nearly to her ankles--she was like a
dream! And she went up the hill by moonlight all by herself, to find
HIM!"

Gwent listened with close interest.

"And I presume she found him?"

Manella nodded, and a sigh escaped her.

"Oh, yes, she found him! He told me that. And I am sure--something
tells me HERE" and she pressed one hand against her heart--"by the
way he spoke--that he loves her!"

"You seem to be a very observant young woman," said Gwent, smiling--
"One would think you were in love with him yourself!"

She raised her large dark eyes to his with perfect frankness.

"I am!" she said--"I see no shame in that! He is a fine man--it is
good to love him!"

Gwent was completely taken aback. Here was primitive passion with a
vengeance!--passion which admitted its own craving without
subterfuge. Manella's eyes were still uplifted in a kind of
childlike confidence.

"I am happy to love him!" she went on--"I wish only to serve him. He
does not love ME--oh, no!--he loves HER! But he hates her too--ah!"
and she gave a little shivering movement of her shoulders--"There is
no love without hate!--and when one loves and hates with the same
heart-beat, THAT is a love for life and death!" She checked herself
abruptly--then with a simplicity which was not without dignity
added--"I am saying too much, perhaps? But you are his friend--and I
think he must be very lonely up there!"

Mr. Senator Gwent was perplexed. He had not looked to stumble on a
romantic episode, yet here was one ready made to his hand. His
nature was ill attuned to romance of any kind, but he felt a certain
compassion for this girl, so richly dowered with physical beauty,
and smitten with love for a man like Roger Seaton who, according to
his own account, had no belief in love's existence. And the "fairy
woman" she spoke of--who could that be but Morgana Royal? After his
recent interview with Seaton his thoughts were rather in a whirl,
and he sought for a bit of commonplace to which he could fasten them
without the risk of their drifting into greater confusion. Yet that
bit of commonplace was hard to find with a woman's lovely passionate
eyes looking straight into his, and the woman herself, a warm-
blooded embodiment of exquisite physical beauty, framed like a
picture among the scented myrtle boughs under the dusky violet sky,
where glittered a few stars with that large fiery brilliance so
often seen in California. He coughed--it was a convenient thing to
cough--it cleared the throat and helped utterance.

"I--I--well!--I hardly think he is lonely"--he said at last,
hesitatingly--"Perhaps you don't know it--but he's a very clever
man--an inventor--a great thinker with new ideas--"

He stopped. How could this girl understand him? What would she know
of "inventors"--and "thinkers with new ideas"? A trifle embarrassed,
he looked at her. She nodded her dark head and smiled.

"I know!" she said--"He is a god!"

Sam Gwent almost jumped. A god! Oh, these women! Of what fantastic
exaggerations they are capable!

"A god!" she repeated, nodding again, complacently; "He can do
anything! I feel that all the time. He could rule the whole world!"

Gwent's nerves "jumped" for the second time. Roger Seaton's own
words--"I'll be master of the world" knocked repeatingly on his
brain with an uncomfortable thrill. He gathered up the straying
threads of his common sense and twisted them into a tough string.

"That's all nonsense!" he said, as gruffly as he could--"He's not a
god by any means! I'm afraid you think too much of him, Miss--Miss--
er--"

"Soriso," finished Manella, gently--"Manella Soriso."

"Thank you!" and Gwent sought for a helpful cigar which he lit--"You
have a very charming name! Yes--believe me, you think too much of
him!"

"You say that? But--are you not his friend?"

Her tone was reproachful.

But Gwent was now nearly his normal business self again.

"No,--I am scarcely his friend"--he replied--"'Friend' is a big
word,--it implies more than most men ever mean. I just know him--
I've met him several times, and I know he worked for a while under
Edison--and--and that's about all. Then I THINK"--he was cautious
here--"I THINK I've seen him at the house of a very wealthy lady in
New York--a Miss Royal--"

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.