"But didn't you realise that such conduct as yours must inevitably end in disgrace and death?"
"Disgrace?" cried the other. "No, it is glory. As for death, what does that matter? My death is of no importance; the victory of my country is everything."
"Then you have no sense of shame for what you have done?"
"Shame?" laughed Waterman—"shame in feeling that I have served the
Fatherland!"
"What do you think about your action, then?"
"I think what fools you all were and are," and Waterman laughed insolently. "I and others have laughed when you have played into our hands. Why," and here there was a touch of passion in his voice, "your country is simply riddled with friends of Germany. Do you think that because a German becomes naturalised he ceases to be a German? Do you think that, although he protests his loyalty to England, and his desire to help England, that he is the less a German at heart? Do you think that a German, whether naturalised or not, stops at anything in order to serve his country? You have hundreds of Germans in your army to-day, while your public offices are full of men, and women too for that matter, of German parentage and with German sympathies. Yes, you may kill me," and he threw back his shoulders proudly, "but that will not stop us from conquering your country and being your masters."
For a moment he almost seemed to dominate the room. He stood erect, haughty, scornful; it might seem as though he were the accuser and not the accused.
"Of course you know the consequence of your deed?" said the President presently.
Waterman shrugged his shoulders. "I have counted the cost, and am willing to pay the price," was his reply.
When he was led away there was a silence in the room for some seconds. Whatever else he had done he had given his judges to see that he was a brave man; that to him the victory of his country was more than life; that for what he had called the Fatherland he had trampled under his feet all ordinary conventions, all accepted rules of honour and truth. Germany was first, everything else came afterwards.