"There are over ten millions of men carrying arms they cannot use, and hundreds of thousands of these men are starving because the railways are useless and no food can be got to them. It would be absurd were it not so great a tragedy; but since we cannot fight, we must arrange our differences some other way. What do you say, Monsieur le President?"
"I say as your Majesty does," replied Monsieur Loubet, in his blunt, common-sense fashion; "and since these gentlemen of the Trust have shown us how helpless fleets and armies may be rendered, perhaps Europe may be induced to seek for some more reasonable method of arranging disputes than by the shedding of blood."
"I most sincerely hope so," said King Edward; "and if these gentlemen are prepared to endorse these sentiments on behalf of their august masters, I think there will be little difficulty in arranging matters satisfactorily and putting an end to what may be justly described as an intolerable and impossible condition of affairs. What do you say, gentlemen?" he went on, turning to the Ministers.
"I fear, your Majesty, it would be necessary for me to communicate with my imperial master before I could pledge him to any course resembling surrender."
"My dear count," said the Kaiser, turning towards him with a laugh, "I am afraid you hardly realise the position. It would take you at the very least three weeks, possibly six, to reach Petersburg. You forget that all the mechanical triumphs of civilisation are for the present things of the past. There are no cables, no telegraphs, no railways. Neither horses nor men are capable of any great exertion, and their strength is becoming less every hour. Petersburg is farther from London to-day than Pekin was a month ago."
"And even from Paris," added the President when the Emperor had finished, "I have been four days travelling. I came to Calais in a truck drawn by horses along the railway, and from Calais in a fishing boat. Gentlemen, if I may venture to advise, I would suggest that the best, nay, the only thing that Europe, in your persons, can do, is to place itself in the hands of His Majesty King Edward. We have been enemies, but he is the friend of all of us, and if any man on earth can and will do right it is he."
"I entirely agree with Monsieur le President," said the Kaiser. "We are helpless, and he can help us. For my own part, I place the interests of Germany unreservedly in his hands."
After this it was impossible for the Ministers of the other Powers to hold back, and so a joint-note was drawn up there and then, praying King Edward to accept the office of mediator between the signatory Powers and those uncrowned monarchs who, from their citadel in the midst of the far-off northern wilderness, had proved their title to sovereignty by demonstrating their power to render the nation helpless at their will.
The only communication that was now possible with Canada, and therefore with Boothia Land, was by means of aërographic messages transmitted from one station to another via the north of Scotland, The Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, where the cable was working as usual. It took nearly twelve hours for the messages to reach the works, and the president had scarcely communicated its contents to his colleagues when the Nadine came rushing full speed into Adelaide Bay with the news that the great Russian ice-breaker, with three other vessels in her wake, was steaming down from the northward about twenty miles away.
CHAPTER XXVII