“Then many die on the way.”
“Certainly, or after they are unloaded they finish quietly and unobserved on the first bundle of straw on which they have been left to die. Some quietly, but others raving and raging in a desperate fight with Death, uttering such curses as might make your hair stand on end. It must have been curses like these that that Mr. Twining of London heard who made the following proposal at the Geneva Conference: ‘Would it not be well, if the condition of a wounded man leaves not the slightest hope of recovery, in such a case to give him first the consolations of religion, then, as far as the circumstances allow, leave him a moment for reflection and then put an end to his agony in the least painful way possible? This would prevent his dying a few moments later, with fever in his brain, and perhaps blasphemies against God on his tongue.’ ”
“How unchristian!” cried Frau Simon.
“What, to give him the coup de grâce?”
“No, but the idea that a blasphemous expression wrung from the soul of a man in the midst of unbearable tortures could imperil his soul. The Christian’s God is not so unjust as that, and assuredly will take every fallen warrior into His grace.”
“Mahomet’s paradise was assured to every Mussulman who had killed a Christian,” replied Bresser. “Believe me, my dear Frau Simon, all those deities who have been represented as leaders of wars, and whose assistance and blessing the priests and commanders promise as the wages of murder, all of them are as deaf to blasphemies as to prayers. Look up there; that star of the first magnitude, with reddish light, it is only seen twinkling or rather shining, for it does not twinkle, over our heads every second year, that is the planet Mars, the star dedicated to the God of War, that god who was so feared and reverenced in old times that he had by far more temples than the Goddess of Love. Of old on the field of Marathon, in the narrow pass of Thermopylæ, that star shed a bloody light on the battles of men, and to him rose up the curses of the fallen who accused him of their misfortune, while he indifferent and peaceful, then as now, was circling round the sun. Hostile stars? there are no such things. Man has no enemy except man, but he is savage enough. And no other friend either,” added Bresser after a short pause; “of that you yourself are giving an example, magnanimous lady. You are——”
“O doctor,” interrupted Frau Simon; “look there, that flame on the horizon, it is surely a village in flames——”
I opened my eyes and saw the red glare.
“No,” said Dr. Bresser, “it is the moon rising.”
I tried to get into a more comfortable position, and sat up for a time. I kept constantly preventing myself from closing my eyes, for that state of half-slumber, with the consciousness of not being asleep, in which the most horrible fancy-pictures carried on their wild procession, was far too painful. Better to take part in the conversation of the other two, and tear myself away from my own thoughts. But the gentleman and lady were dumb. They were looking towards the place where now the luminary of night was really rising. And again in spite of me my eyes closed for a space. This time it was sleep. In the one second during which I felt that I was going to sleep, that the world around me was ceasing to exist, I felt such a delight in annihilation that the brother of my benefactor, Death, would have been quite welcome to me.