The restaurants, the hotels, the cafés—every place where crowds assembled—swarmed with strangers, speaking French, it is true, but with an accent which, to acute ears, betrayed their origin and made one wonder at their pro-Gallic sentiments. The French and German residents of the town drew imperceptibly apart, grew a little more formal, ceased the exchange of friendly visits. No one knew what was about to happen, but every one felt that a crisis of some sort was at hand.
The commandant changed, in those days, from a bluff, self-confident and brave soldier to a shrunken craven, trembling at shadows. If he had known where the danger lay, or what it was, he would have met it valiantly enough; but he knew scarcely more than did his humblest soldier. He knew that the peril was very great; he knew that at any moment his magazines might blow up beneath his feet; he knew that what he had to guard against was the stringing of wires, the establishment of a wireless plant. Every stranger must be watched, his registration investigated, his baggage at all times kept under surveillance. A stranger carrying a bundle in the streets must always be followed. Every resident receiving a roomer, a boarder, or even a guest from another city must make immediate return to the police.
How many times had the commandant read these instructions! And always, at the last, he read twice over the paragraph at the bottom of the sheet, underlined in red:
"At all hours of the day or night, two operators will be on duty at every wireless station, their receivers at their ears, their instruments adjusted. Should they perceive any signal which they are unable to explain, especially a series of measured dashes, they will report the same immediately to the commandant, who will turn out his entire command and cause a thorough search to be made at once of all house-tops, hills and eminences of every sort within a radius of five miles. All wires whose use is not fully apparent will be torn down and all persons having access to such wires will be arrested and held for interrogation. SHOULD THE SERIES OF SIGNALS BEGIN A SECOND TIME, ALL MAGAZINES WILL AT ONCE BE FLOODED."
This last sentence, printed in capitals to give it emphasis, the commandant at Strasbourg could not understand. To flood the magazines meant the loss of a million marks; besides, why should it be necessary? What possible danger could threaten those great ammunition store-houses, buried deep beneath walls of granite, protected from every conceivable mishap, and whose keys hung always above his desk? He was completely baffled; worse than that, he felt himself shaken and unnerved in face of this mysterious peril.
A copy of this order was sent to every fortress in Germany, and it is therefore not remarkable that, three days after it was issued, it should be in the hands of M. Delcassé. He read it with a lively pleasure. He was beginning to enjoy life again. He knew that the tone of his ultimatum had astonished the German ambassador; but he also knew that, while the German press still talked of the national honour and of Germany's duty to Morocco, the inner circle about the Emperor was distinctly ill at ease. The Emperor himself had been invisible for some days, and was reported to be suffering with a severe cold.
After reading the order, Delcassé summoned Marbeau.
"How do your plans shape themselves?" he asked.
"Admirably, sir," answered the wireless chief. "We shall be ready to start to-morrow."