His voice had a curious rumble in the dim stone room. Matthews wondered whether it were because the acoustic properties of a serdab in Dizful differ from those of a galley on the Karun, or whether there really were something new about him.
“Why, it’s bound to come sooner or later, isn’t it? If it’s true that all the way from Nish to Ragusa those chaps speak the same language and belong to the same race, one can hardly blame them for wanting to do what the Italians and the Germans have already done. And, as a philosopher sitting amidst the ruins of empires, wouldn’t you say yourself that Austria has bitten off rather more than she can chew?”
“Very likely I should.” Magin took a cigar out of his pocket, snipped off the end with a patent cutter, lighted it, and regarded the smoke with a growing look of amusement. “But,” he went on, “as a philosopher sitting amidst the ruins of empires, I would hardly confine that observation to Austria-Hungary. For instance, I have heard”—and his look of amusement verged on a smile—“of an island in the Atlantic Ocean not much larger than the land of Elam, an island of rains and fogs whose people, feeling the need of a little more sunlight perhaps, or of pin-money and elbow-room, sailed away and conquered for themselves two entire continents, as well as a good part of a third. I have also heard that the inhabitants of this island, not content with killing and enslaving so many defenceless fellow-creatures, or with picking up any lesser island, cape, or bay that happened to suit their fancy, took it upon themselves to govern several hundred million unwilling individuals of all colours and religions in other parts of the world. And, having thus procured both sunlight and elbow-room, those enterprising islanders assumed a virtuous air and pushed the high cries—as our friend Gaston would say—if any of their neighbours ever showed the slightest symptom of following their very successful example. Have you ever heard of such an island? And would you not say—as a philosopher sitting amidst the ruins of empires!—that it had also bitten off rather more than it could chew?”
Matthews, facing the question and the now open smile, felt that he wanted to be cool, but that he did not altogether succeed.
“I dare say that two or three hundred years ago we did things we wouldn’t do now. Times have changed in all sorts of ways. But we never set out like a Cæsar or a Napoleon or a Bismarck to invent an empire. It all came about quite naturally. Anybody else could have done the same. But nobody else thought of it—at the time. We simply got there first.”
“Ah?” Magin smiled more broadly. “It seems to me that I have heard of another island, not so far from here, which is no more than a pin-point, to be sure, but which happens to be the key of the Persian Gulf. I have also heard that the Portuguese got there first, as you put it. But you crushed Portugal, you crushed Spain, you crushed Holland, you crushed France—or you meant to. And I must say it looks to me as if you would not mind crushing Germany. Why do you go on building ships, building ships, building ships, always two to Germany’s one? Simply that you and your friends may go on eating up Asia and Africa—and perhaps Germany too!”
Matthews noticed that the elder man ended, at any rate, not quite so coolly as he began.
“Nonsense! The thing’s so simple it isn’t worth repeating. We have to have more ships than anybody else because our empire is bigger than anybody else’s—and more scattered. As for eating, it strikes me that Germany has done more of that lately than any one. However, if you know so much about islands, you must also know how we happened to go into India—or Egypt. In the beginning it was pure accident. And you know very well that if we left them to-morrow there would be the devil to pay. Do we get a penny out of them?”
“Oh, no!” laughed Magin. “You administer them purely on altruistic principles, for their own good and that of the world at large—like the oil-wells of the Karun!”
“Well, since you put it that way,” laughed Matthews in turn, “perhaps we do!”