Part 174

"I am here to listen. I always have time to listen."

"Then I may speak freely?"

"Yes, you may make a statement if you choose."

"Accusations?"

"If you choose."

"It will not help my case if I prove to you of what filth chancelleries are made? If I expose to you what the faith of governments amounts to?--If I show you a man who has betrayed everybody since his boyhood--an officer here--your comrade and friend? All this will not help my case?"

"No."

"And yet I may make my statement if I choose? Is that the situation, General?"

"Yes."

"And I may denounce whom I please? I am free to accuse, am I? Free to confess and involve others?"

"Yes."

"He! Nom d'un nom! Comme vous est un bon bougre!!" broke out Wildresse in his harsh and dreadful voice. "I am to die, am I? So that's it, is it? Then I'll pull down everybody and everything I can while I have the chance. Men? Does it matter so much about a man or two if one can set the treacherous nations flying at one another's throats? There's a real revenge! I'll poison the belief in nations in you all!--You with your alliances and leagues and ententes!--That's where you'll not forget me! That's where your half crazy Kings and diseased Emperors will turn cross-eyed with suspicion! That's where there'll be a ratty scuttling to cover in your dirty chancelleries! I'll strip the orders and epaulettes off one or two idols before I finish. And I want witnesses! I demand witnesses to confront me----"

"Be quiet, Wildresse. Whom do you desire to confront?"

"You--for one! Then, the educated Kurd, yonder! That Cossack there--that man over there in a green uniform, who pretends to be a Christian!--That bashi-bazouk of Abdul--Major-General Count Cassilis, Russian Military Observer at division headquarters!"

"Very well."

"And I demand to be confronted with others, too. That Yankee painter, Warner. Let him carry the poison I spill back among his own people. They won't forget. And I want the British officer here, Captain Gray! Let him report to his Government what I say, and see if it can swallow it! ... That's a sufficiency of men.... And for my supplement I want the Countess de Moidrey--so that the noble faubourg shall feel the poison in its veins.... And, as proof documentary of the statement I shall make, I demand to be confronted with the girl Philippa!"

"Is that all?"

"No.... The mercy, the extenuation denied me by the military autocracy of France, I shall seek from another. I require two things only before I die: understanding and absolution from--my son."

"Who?"

"My only son, Jacques Wildresse, 6th Company, Battalion of Africa!--Jacques--of Biribi! That's all I want--so that he understands and pardons. As for you others--je m'en----"

The staff officer at the telephone suddenly bent over and whispered to the General. He listened, nodded, looked calmly at Wildresse.

"The soldier Wildresse, 6th Company, Battalion d'Afrique, was unable to bear your disgrace. He is this moment reported dead by his own hand."

A terrible spasm shot like lightning across the prisoner's visage, drawing his whole face to one side. Slowly the flaccid muscles resumed their natural places; the screwed up features loosened.

"That's a lie," mumbled Wildresse; and his big, hairless head doddered for a moment.

At a nod from Delisle a soldier picked up the wrist rope, coiled it, and gave it a slight pull.

"March!" he said briefly to his prisoner.

Count Cassilis came over, faintly amused at the scene, to judge by his expression.

"There's a good place under the north terrace," he said languidly. "You don't intend to listen, I fancy, to this statement he wants to make.... Do you?"