“I should like to see again the picture showing the working of the bomb-dropping device, and I would like to have the film stopped exactly at the moment that the projectile leaves the tube. I wish to examine the action of the ejector.”
“I shall be most happy,” replied Edestone, “to run that film again very slowly and repeat it as often as Your Majesty may desire. I can also run it backward very slowly, but I cannot stop the machine that I am using tonight without ruining the film, and I am quite sure,” he bowed most respectfully, “that Your Majesty will not wish me to do that.”
“Stop that machine as I order you to do, and ruin the film if it is necessary!” said the Emperor in his most commanding tone.
At last Edestone had the chance he had been looking for. He knew that he was perfectly in his rights, and if he refused and the Emperor still insisted upon his most unjust demand, it would open the eyes of his country’s representative to the situation and the true attitude of the German authorities. Besides, he was incensed at the wanton destruction of other people’s property to satisfy the whims of this absolute monarch.
“I am very sorry, Your Majesty, I cannot do that, and for state reasons that it is impossible for me to explain.”
The Emperor turned perfectly livid. His face was painful to look at. He tried vainly to speak, but could not. It was plain that he was labouring under an emotion greater than his physical condition could stand. His mouth worked and each hair of his moustache seemed to stand on end, giving to his trembling lips an almost ghastly expression. He was seized with a violent fit of coughing which on account of the weak condition of his throat caused his doctor, without whom he rarely moved, to step forward, as if alarmed, to his assistance.
General von Lichtenstein leaned over as if to restrain him and whispered something in his ear, but this seemed only to infuriate him the more, and he waved his Councillor aside.
The Acting Ambassador, a lawyer of ability, felt strongly the justice of Edestone’s position in defending his property rights, and had he been sitting on the bench instead of on the edge of a raging volcano would have ruled in his favour. As it was, he watched with intense interest this contest between these two remarkable men.
When the Emperor had recovered sufficiently to speak, in a way that showed his uncontrollable rage was battling with an inherited physical weakness, his voice, starting in a whisper, rose and broke, and, in his violent efforts to control the convulsive spasms of his throat, turned into a scream.
“Show that film!” he shouted, “and stop it where I command or I will confiscate everything you have and throw you into prison.”