"Meanwhile, the Imperial Ambassador, Count Benedetti, will be setting forth the object of his mission to the King!"
Said the Chancellor, letting the words come out softly and distinctly,—and one would have expected so huge a man to roar after the fashion of giants, rather than to speak in such mellifluous tones:
"His instructions run thus: 'Say to the King that we have no secret motive, that we do not seek a pretext for war—and that we only ask to reach an honorable solution of a difficulty that was not created by us.'"
"It is honorable, then," said Von Moltke in a tone of childlike wonder, "to threaten to murder that old woman's two sons?"
"Meanwhile," said the mellifluous, pleasant voice of the Chancellor, "the Emperor and Marshal le Bœuf have sent Staff-Colonel Gresley to Algiers with secret orders to MacMahon to embark those troops from Africa which are most available for service on the Continent, and to warn the most distant regiments to be at Algiers on the 18th. The Generals of his Artillery and Engineers have been dispatched upon a plain-clothes confidential visit of inspection to the fortresses of the North-East, all leave has been stopped, and the commanders of brigades have apprised the staffs of the mobilization offices to dispatch the orders of recall of the reserves. This was put into effect on the 8th. Upon the same day the order was given to bring the Infantry regiments up to War strength by the creation of their Fourth Battalions, and General Blondeau, of the Administrative Branch of the War Department, has been authorized to exceed his credit by the sum of a million francs." He ended, showing his small, regular teeth, as he smiled agreeably upon his hearers: "The Tuileries system of Secret Intelligence is certainly excellent, but I do not think we are so badly served!"
"Badly served!" echoed Roon. "One would say not!"
"You must be served by the great devil himself and all his devilkins, Otto, my dear fellow!" said the Chief of the Great General Staff, with a merry chuckle, "to have all this dished up to you before it is cold! Well, well! Thanks be to the good God—we are not so far behind these French as we might be! No, no! not at all so far behind! ..."
He said this musingly, his startlingly limpid eyes almost hidden by the wrinkles and puckers, his long, humorous upper lip drawn down and set firmly on the lower one, as he cupped his sharp chin in the palm of one wrinkled hand, nursing the elbow appertaining to it in the palm of-the other hand.
"'So far behind,' do you say?" growled Von Roon. "Sapperlot! I should call it a day's march and a half-day's march ahead!"
"It may be—it may be!" said the Field-Marshal placidly. "God grant that it prove so!"