e stakes his life; we are making an experiment
on which we stake the welfare of the German Empire, and, perhaps, the
fate of the world. If he is willing, I am."

"And I am ready," replied Castellan, working the keys faster and faster
as he spoke, and looking at the two swords as carelessly as if they had
been a couple of walking sticks.

The sword points advanced towards him; the keys of the machine clicked
faster and faster. The atmosphere of the room became tenser and tenser;
the Kaiser leaned back against the door with his arms folded. When the
points were within three feet of Castellan's head, the steel began to
gleam with a bluish green light. The Chancellor and the Field Marshal
stopped; they saw sparkles of blue flame running along the sword blades.
Then came paralysis! the swords dropped from their hands, and they
staggered back.

"Great God, this is too much," gasped the Chancellor. "The man is
impregnable. It is too much, your Majesty. I fought through the war of
'70 and '71, but I surrender to this; this is not human."

"I beg your pardon, Excellency," said Castellan, getting up from the
machine, and picking the two swords from the floor, "it is quite human,
only a little science that the majority of humanity does not happen to
know. Your swords, gentlemen," and he presented the hilts to them.

"Bravo!" exclaimed the Kaiser, "well done! You have beaten the two best
soldiers in the German Empire, and you have done it like a gentleman.
But you are not altogether an Irishman, are you, Mr Castellan?"

"No, sir, I am a Spaniard as well. The earliest ancestor that I know
commanded the _Santiago_, wrecked on Achill Island, when the Armada came
south from the Pentland Firth. The rest of me is Irish. I need hardly
say more. That is why I am here now."

The Kaiser looked at the Chancellor and the Field Marshal, and they
looked back at him, and in a moment the situation--the crisis upon which
the fate of the world might depend--was decided. It was not a time when
men who are men talk. A few moments of silence passed; the four men
looking at each other with eyes that had the destinies of nations in the
brains behind them. Then the Kaiser took three swift strides towards
Castellan, held out his hand, and said in a voice which had an unwonted
note of respect in it:

"Sir, you have convinced me. Henceforth you are Director of the Naval
and Military operations of the German Empire, subject, of course, to the
conditi