"I wish to talk with you for a few minutes."
"It would be a waste of time."
Pachmann paused to look again at the glittering eyes, and the thought flashed through his mind, as it had done more than once before, that he had to do with a madman. An inspired genius, perhaps, but mad, nevertheless. Pachmann knew that there was about madness a certain childishness, and he determined to humour it.
"For you, perhaps, it would be waste of time," he said, approaching the bed and sitting down; "but not for me. My life-work has been the study of electrical energy as applied to war, and I fancied myself fairly well informed, when, suddenly, you come and prove to me that I know nothing. That morning, ten days since, when I stood on the quay at Toulon and saw a great battleship reduced to a twisted wreck, I realised my ignorance, and my heart glowed with admiration for you, my master."
"Yes, I am your master," and Vard raised himself upon one elbow. "Even here, your prisoner, I am still your master."
"I admit it. And I have a proposal to make to you."
"I have no confidence in your proposals."
"Yet listen to this one. Place this power at the Emperor's service, and he will name you ruler of any nation you choose—of this one, if it pleases you—and leave you to govern it as seems best to you, without interference of any kind. Think, my friend, what a destiny—free to embody your own ideas in the government of what is in some ways the greatest nation on earth; free to make a paradise here, if you can. And if you succeed, your dream comes true, for all the other nations of the world will follow."
Vard gazed at the speaker with wistful eyes.
"It could come true," he said. "It could come true; it could not fail. But you are too blind, too selfish, too narrow. You are only a German."