“Eh! what is that?” exclaimed the King, this time rising to his feet and facing Alan with an air of petulant reproach. “Powerless to prevent it? You, with all your fleets of air-ships and submarine vessels? You, who have called yourselves the masters of the world for nearly a century and a half—you cannot stop war?”
“We cannot do so, your Majesty,” said Alan, also rising to his feet, “simply because I regret to say that we no longer possess the undisputed empire of the air, and therefore, in a measure at least, we have lost the command of the world.
“As for the responsibility which your words impute to us, I must tell you at once that it does not exist. The rulers of the world, and yourself among them, voluntarily and with full knowledge accepted perfect freedom, and therefore the individual responsibility that is inseparable from it. You knew that from the time we resigned the world-throne you were free to make war upon each other, on land and by sea.
“It is your fault and not ours that you are now so defenceless that you have cause to fear the war against which you ask us to protect you. You have known for nearly four years that the Sultan of Islam has been creating armies and fleets, and diligently training millions of his subjects in that art of war which we hoped was to be forgotten for ever among men.
“Did you suppose, you Kings and Princes of the Anglo-Saxon Federation, that Khalid the Magnificent, a man of boundless ambition, was creating these armies and fleets simply to play with them? Could you not see that nothing but some dream of world-wide conquest could be inspiring him to do this, and do you need to be told that the realms of Christendom offered him the only possible area of conquest in the world?
“What have you done to defend yourselves, or to prepare against a possible day of battle? You have done nothing. Saving your international police, now little more than an ornamental body of officials, the Federation does not possess a single soldier. You have seen the Sultan building battleships and arming them with the deadliest weapons that skill and science could devise, and you, with all your wealth, and skill, and knowledge, have not built a single vessel that would be of use in time of war.
“I understand that the Council has warned you again and again that the Sultan’s designs could not have been peaceable, and yet your Parliaments have not voted a single pound for the defence of your homes and your riches.”
“Ah, yes!” broke in the King, now in an apologetic tone, for he was completely cowed by the direct, earnest force of Alan’s reproving words. “That is it! You must not blame myself or my fellow-monarchs, you must blame the Parliaments. We can do nothing without them; they have usurped all the power that formerly belonged to Kings. It is this democracy that has weakened us and left us defenceless. Every man thinks himself a ruler, and so there are no rulers, except in name. Every man has a vote, therefore every man must be consulted about everything, and so nothing can be done but what the multitude wishes. They want only riches, splendid buildings and cities, light work, and comfortable lives. That is all they have cared about, and so that is all they have got. If we, their Kings and duly appointed rulers, could have done as we wished to do affairs would have been very different; but it is impossible to rule where every man fancies himself a king!”
“That is but a poor excuse, King Albert,” replied Alan sternly and yet somewhat sadly. “It is the old story of Greece and Rome and Byzantium over again. The weakness of the rulers has been the strength of the demagogues, and that has always spelt national decay from the days of Cleon until now.
“I might ask you how it comes that Sultan Khalid has been able to keep his millions of subjects in hand and to be to-day the sole actual ruler of the greatest empire the world has ever seen; but neither you nor I have any more time to waste, either in reproaching each other or regretting what cannot now be helped.”