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While M. Arman was at work in France, the Laird Brothers were at work in England and their dockyards contained two ironclad rams supposed to outclass any vessels of the United States navy.
Gíw, finding that his son had not returned with him from Armán, was frantic with grief; he tore his garments and his hair, and threw ashes over his head; and seeing the horse his son had ridden, caressed it in the fondest manner, demanding from Girgín a full account of what he knew of his fate. "O Heaven forbid," said he, "that my son should have fallen into the power of the merciless demons!"
Slidell saw in the Forey letter only "views... which will not be gratifying to the Washington Government." The adroit Arman, acting on hints from high officers of the Government, applied for permission to build and arm ships of war, alleging that he intended to send them to the Pacific and sell them to either China or Japan.
Numerous contracts have been found for the lease or sale of estates in which the "acreage" or number of paddani is carefully stated. The application of the name to the plain of Mesopotamia was doubtless clue to the Babylonians. An early Babylonian king claims rule over the "land of Padan," and elsewhere we are told that it lay in front of the country of the Arman or Aramæans.
One day the people of Armán petitioned Kai-khosráu to remove from them a grievous calamity.
Presently he had summoned Arman before him, "rated him severely," and ordered him to make bona fide sales of the ships to neutral powers. The Minister of Marine professed surprise and indignation at Arman's trifling with the neutrality of the Imperial Government. And that practically was the end of the episode. Equally complete was the breakdown of the Confederate negotiations with Mexico.
Here and there torrents from the hills had cut channels five or six feet below the level, and a thicker vegetation denoted the lines of bed. The growth of wild plants, scanty near the coast, became more luxuriant as we approached the hills; the Arman Acacia flourished, the Kulan tree grew in clumps, and the Tamarisk formed here and there a dense thicket. Except a few shy antelope, we saw no game.
M. Arman had turned to another member of the Legislative Assembly, a sound Bonapartist like himself, M. Voruz, of Nantes, to whom he had sublet a part of the Confederate contract. The truth about the ships and their destination thus became part of the archives of the Voruz firm.
On January 7, 1863, M. Arman, of Bordeaux, "the largest shipbuilder in France," had called on the Confederate commissioner: M. Arman would be happy to build ironclad ships for the Confederacy, and as to paying for them, cotton bonds might do the trick.
The ambassador, M. de Sartiges, was absent on leave, and was replaced by his first secretary, M. Arman. The latter understood his duty, and, at the risk of being importunate, ceased not to make known, every day, to France, the events which were so rapidly occurring. Thus did a comparatively humble secretary save the honor of his country.
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