“Then allow me to help you,” came in suave tones from the dapper little stranger, with such suddenness, that both Tony and Phil started back in surprise.
“Ah! did not know that I was there, I suppose,” remarked the stranger, with a smile. “But I’ve been listening—listening with interest for some time. You have had some education, I observe, young sir,” he continued, addressing Phil, “and if you and your companion would really care, I will clear up this mystery for you.”
“Thank you! It would be very kind, sir,” exclaimed Phil. “We have bothered about the matter many days.”
“And there is no one who ought to be informed more than you, my friends,” the stranger remarked earnestly. “As sure as my name is Shelton, you of the Guards, and many another soldier boy, will be off towards the Black Sea before many weeks have passed. For war is practically certain.”
“Horroo! You don’t say so, sir!” cried Tony, snapping his fingers with delight and drawing himself up stiffly as though to show Mr Shelton what a fight he would make of it.
“But I do, my young friend,” the latter replied, with a grave smile. “War is undoubtedly imminent, and the Powers are about to grapple with an enemy as subtle and as courageous as exists in any part of the world. But come, glance at the map and I will try to tell you all about the trouble, and when I have finished I feel sure that you two will go out with all the more determination to do your duty for the sake of the oppressed and for England’s honour, for if ever there was an act of bullying the Czar is guilty of it.
“You must know that Russia’s teeming thousands are, as a mass, densely, hopelessly ignorant. Peasants for the most part, they live a life of abject misery. They are little better than slaves, and, ruled over by various lords, they one and all look to the Czar as all-powerful, unconquerable, and as a tyrant whose word is law, and whose hand, lifted in anger, is worse than death itself. He is, in other words, an autocratic ruler, and he, like those who held the throne before him, has diligently followed out a policy of keeping his poor subjects in a state of ignorance. What a work it would be to lift those poor people from their lifelong condition of serfdom! A work fit for the best of rulers; but educate them, teach them to think for themselves, and at once your autocratic government ceases, for the masses will unite and rise against a galling system of tyranny and oppression. They will no longer bow to the will of one man—to thousands in the far-off districts a ruler only in name,—but, goaded to rebellion, they will fight for that liberty sweet to every man.
“Thus, you will follow me, education is opposed to autocratic rule. But such a rule, bringing in its train misery and poverty, breeds discontent, and even the most pitiable of wretches, if sufficiently ill-treated, will brood over their wrongs till the fury of hate seizes them, and once more the reign of the absolute ruler is threatened. So well is the Czar Nicholas aware of this, that to distract the attention of his subjects from their grievances he has filled their minds with the alluring spectacle of foreign conquests. Look at the map. See how big the Russian empire is, and remember how a great part is almost uninhabitable owing to excessive cold. Then look at her capital, Saint Petersburg, and see how far from European ports it is. How much better for her if she possessed a town in the position of Constantinople. Then, with the narrow Dardanelles to guard, she could post a fleet of war-ships in the Black Sea, and at any moment swoop down into the Mediterranean. She would become at once mistress of that sea, and as such could intimidate her neighbours. And in peace times what an outlet the Turkish capital would prove for all Russia’s surplus manufactures, and how easily a vast quantity of stores could be imported through it! It would be the making of Russia, my young friends, and she knows it, has known it, and has steadily worked for that end.”
Mr Shelton paused, and, drawing the map closer, pointed out the various points of interest in Russia and Turkey, while Phil and Tony followed him.
“Ah, now I begin to see!” said the former; “Russia wants Turkey, or rather that part of it on the Dardanelles, and that I suppose is the reason for this trouble. But surely she would not deliberately attempt to deprive the Sultan of his capital?”