Part 12

Mabuse, in wrath, exclaimed, “The past is past. Your part is to obey. My orders are clear, and there is nothing between Yes and No. You have heard from George what my wishes are. Drive on, George!”

He was already in the car. The woman fell back to the garden railings, covered herself up again, and called after the retreating car, “But if I cannot stop loving you?”

Then a second car pulled up close beside her. A man sprang out and advanced towards her, saying threateningly, “What do you want here? Oh, oh! it’s you, Cara! Well, have you spoken to the Doctor?”

She nodded despairingly.

“There’s nothing to be done. His will is like a sledge-hammer, therefore don’t oppose it. So long! I must go after him.”

And Cara Carozza gathered her disguising garments about her and went away in grief, downcast and heavy-hearted, to sacrifice herself for him.

* * * * *

“Where are we?” inquired Mabuse through the speaking-tube.

“Past Landsberg!” answered George.

The plans in Mabuse’s head succeeded one another as rapidly as the trees in a forest in which he wandered continually further. Ever more steps to climb, more gulfs to cross! Were they really plans after all? Were they not dreams? he asked himself, suddenly checking the thoughts that were racing through his mind.

“Five million Swiss francs are now worth about twenty-five million lire, i.e. five million Italian five-lire pieces. Each of these weighs twenty grams. Five million, will that be enough? It’s a good idea, for the gain on every five-lire piece which I buy at to-day’s rate with Swiss francs is four francs; therefore the total gain will be four million Swiss francs. Against that the costs are thirty per cent. Good! Each one, I said, weighs twenty grams. Now, how many kilograms are there in five million times twenty grams? A hundred million grams? Why cannot I think out these simple calculations clearly? Am I afraid of anything?”

Yes, there again he found himself in another forest. “Am I afraid, really afraid? If I am, I shall come to grief. After all, who is Hull? Who is Wenk? What absurdity! I ... afraid?”

He collected his ideas, and sent these thoughts packing.

“A hundred million grams make a hundred thousand kilograms. According to the district he is in, a smuggler can carry from ten to fifteen kilos every time. How many men am I employing in this work alone? The whole amount must be brought from Italy to the Southern Tyrol and thence to Switzerland within a month. The Austrian frontiers are easier, even if I have to employ twice the number. Spoerri reckoned the risk to be only three per cent., according to the police reports, as against ten per cent. by Lake Constance or the Ticino frontier, where the Customs officials, even in peace-time, used to regard everybody with suspicion.”

Mabuse’s imagination threatened to run away with him again. Should he not try to sleep?

“Where are we?” he called through the speaking-tube.

“At Buchloe!” was the reply.

The distance from Buchloe to Röthenbach was eighteen kilometres.

“That will take two hours,” he reflected; “then we shall do it comfortably. At 2 p.m. we must be at Schachen, and before that we meet Spoerri at Opfenbach and Pesch on the Lindau Hill. After that we shall be practically in Schachen, and there will be no chance of sleep.”

But he could not regain control of himself. Wenk’s attempt at pursuit oppressed him. In the Palace Hotel he had only had ten minutes’ start of him.

He did not want to acknowledge it, even to himself. He began to reckon that to smuggle five million five-lire pieces from Italy and the Southern Tyrol through Vorarlberg to Switzerland would require two hundred and fifty people on each frontier. That was five hundred men for the smuggling alone. If he reckoned the buyers and the Bolzano collectors as well, it was really seven hundred. With their families he might consider that he was keeping, roughly, about four thousand people. That was a small township. A little town lay in his grasp, pledged to evil purposes, working in dark nights, stealing along mysterious byways, avoiding the revolvers of Customs officials, working stealthily, steadily, at his will. They had no thought either, but of him, the owner of the money, the employer and dictator, the possessor of all power and force. They ventured their lives for him, but he had never seen one of them. How would it be if he were to see and converse with them, appearing abruptly before them when they were in the midst of their enterprise? They would imagine themselves to be caught, until they should have realized that it was he, their master and employer, who stood amongst them.

Four thousand people; it was a whole district. But in Citopomar it would be something very different when he traversed the virgin forests and had the Botocudos and all the other tribes directly under his thumb, and had left this insignificant beggarly little continent behind him! There his word alone would be law. There, in Citopomar, the dream of his boyhood would be fulfilled--a dream which had already begun to be realized on that large and desolate island which lay cradled in the ocean yonder. There he had owned men; there wild Nature was his alone; as a conqueror he had sailed the waters; his blood and sinews governed men; his will was imposed on Nature; the palms of his planting yielded him a luxuriant growth of wealth--sheer gold. He could despise it because he did not need it, for there he was free, free as a king, a deity!...

But the war had driven him out of his Paradise and sent him back to the despised continent of Europe. He could not endure life in these European countries. He felt as if he were confined in a pasture, eating grass like dumb, senseless cattle ate their predestined, accustomed grass. No, he could not live thus! Therefore by undermining State organization he was preparing a State for himself, with laws which he alone made, with powers vested in himself over the souls and bodies of men. By means of his accomplices he was collecting the money wherewith to establish his empire in the primeval forests of Brazil, the Empire of Citopomar.

He was self-sufficing. What were men to him? He scattered them at will. Yonder, however, in the future, in Citopomar, there would be none who could oppose him.

By degrees, as these thoughts ran away with him, Mabuse fell asleep, his limbs reclining on the cushions and his phantasies soaring above all material things. For two long hours he slept, sunk in the darkness of his dreams.

Then it seemed as if a little hammer were striking his skull, always on the same spot. It was annoying, and it was unheard of. He had only two hours between Buchloe and Röthenbach in which to sleep. Who had dared to strike his head with this hammer?

All at once he was wide awake. The hammer was the whistle of the speaking-tube.

“Well?” called out Mabuse.