CHAPTER VI
The most tremendous explosives refuse to explode unless some detonator like fulminate of mercury is set off first. Each of us has his own fulminate, and the snap of a little cap of it brings on our cataclysm.
It was a pity, seeing how many Germans were alienated from their country by the series of its rulers’ crimes, and seeing how many German names were in the daily lists of our dead, that the word and the accent grew so hateful to the American people. It was a pity, but the Americans were not to blame if the very intonation of a Teutonism made their ears tingle.
Davidge prized life and had no suicidal inclinations or temptations. No imaginable crisis in his affairs could have convinced him to self-slaughter. He was brave, but cautious.
Even now, if Nicky Easton, poising the bombshell with its appalling threat, had murmured a sardonic “Well?” Davidge would probably have smiled, shrugged, and said:
“You’ve got the bead on me, partner. I’m yours.” He would have gone along as Nicky’s prisoner, waiting some better chance to recover his freedom.
But the mal-pronunciation of the shibboleth strikes deep centers of racial feeling and makes action spring faster than thought. The Sicilians at vespers asked the Frenchmen to pronounce “cheecheree,” and slew them when they said “sheesheree.” So Easton snapped a fulminate in Davidge when his Prussian tongue betrayed him into that impertinent, intolerable alien “Vell?”
Davidge was helpless in his own frenzy. He leaped.