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It is true that he promised me other happiness, but I answered that I was too old for new happiness, that my eyes would be delighted always with roses, and that the odor of violets is dearer to me than stench from my foul neighbor of the Subura. "These are reasons why thy happiness is not for me. But there is one reason more, which I have reserved for the last: Thanatos summons me.
Poor Thanatos! he looked tired to death, and I fancied his bent knees quivering, each short slow step he took. Ah, how unlike the happy old horse that had been! I thought of Death returning home weary from the slaughter of many kings, and cast the thought away.
In the morning I sent Penny to order the phaeton, and then ran to my uncle's room, in the hope he would want to see John before he left: I was not sure he had realized that he was going. He was neither in his bed-room nor in the study. I went to the stable. Dick was putting the horse to the phaeton. He told me he had heard his master, two hours before, saddle Thanatos, and ride away.
"'Thanatos! Von Heckmann!" shouted the officers. And with one accord they dashed their goblets to the stone flagging upon which they stood. "And now, my dear inventor," said the general, "to you belongs the honour of arousing 'Thanatos' into activity. Are you ready, gentlemen? I warn you that when 'Thanatos' snores the rafters will ring."
But the Ring had sailed peacefully along, three thousand feet aloft, deluging the countryside with its dazzling light, sending its beams into the casemates of the huge fortresses of the Rhine and the outer line of the French fortifications, searching the redoubts and trenches, but doing no harm to the sleeping armies that lay beneath it; until at last the silence of the night had been broken by the thunder of "Thanatos," and in the twinkling of an eye the Lavender Ray had descended, to turn the village of Champaubert into the smoking crater of a dying volcano.
The blood of the shattered miner, Blood of the boy in the rifle pits, blood of the coughing child-slave, Blood of the mangled trainman, blood that the Carpenter shed! "For your sake! For the world's sake, this!" he cried, and hurled another thanatos. "If ever war of liberation was holy, this is that war!"
"Where are the others?" thought he, and reached for a thanatos projectile, in the rack near the metal cup where the punk still glowered. All at once, a glare of light burst upward through the white-glowing mist; and the 'plane reeled with the air-wave, as now a thunderous concussion boomed across the empty spaces of the sky.
Death had been sent home, and was in the stable, sorely missing his master. I called Dick, and told him to get ready to ride with me to Wittenage; he must take Thanatos, and be at the door with Zoe in twenty minutes. We started. As we left the gate, I caught sight of John coming from the other direction, his eyes on the ground, lost in meditation. I stopped.
"Well," remarked one of the officers, turning to the only one of his companions not in uniform. "'Thanatos' is ready." The man addressed was Von Heckmann, the most famous inventor of military ordnance in the world, already four times decorated for his services to the Emperor. "The labour of nine years!" he answered with emotion. "Nine long years of self-denial and unremitting study!
He looked up, saw me, and was at my side in two moments. "I have heard from my uncle," I said. "He wants me. I am going to him." "If only I had my horse!" he answered. "Why shouldn't you take Thanatos?" I rejoined. "No," he answered, after a moment's hesitation. "It would be an impertinence. I will walk, and perhaps see you there. It's only sixteen miles, I think. What a splendid creature he is!"
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