CHAPTER XLI

Virginia Holland’s conversion to the open advocacy of the principles of monarchy and aristocracy was Waldron’s first sensation in the campaign in which he began to destroy the American conception of liberty.

Her confession of faith was a liberal outline of the ideals which the Governor-General had proclaimed in his library. Waldron was elated at his complete triumph.

Her brief statement and appeal to the women of America to support her movement of loyalty he ordered printed in every newspaper in the country. It duly appeared on the front pages, accompanied by a portrait of the distinguished young convert.

Her first year’s engagements in organizing the Woman’s Imperial Legion of Honor covered the principal cities of every state.

Her appeal had been received by the women of America with secret rage, amazement and horror. The Government had commanded their attendance on her lectures. Her reception at first had been cold and formal. But her magnetic personality turned the tide. Within a month there was no hall large enough in America to hold the breathless throngs of women who hung on her words. And strangest of all, they cheered her with an enthusiasm that amazed Waldron.

His agents reported this enthusiasm with oft-repeated praise of her uncanny genius.

The secret of her popularity they had not dreamed. In each town she took into her confidence but one woman on whose love for country she could depend with absolute certainty. This woman she swore in secret to organize an inner circle whose name to them was the Daughters of Jael. The spies who followed her tour to report to the Governor-General never reached this inner circle. In it were taken under solemn oath those whose love for liberty was a religion.

The Daughters of Jael comprised only the wisest women leaders, and with them the strongest and most beautiful girls in the glory of youth from twenty to thirty years of age.

They were taught in secret two things--to keep their lithe young bodies hard and sun-tanned and learn to wield a steel knife whose blade was eight inches long, slender and keen. When a million had been sworn and trained the order would come to strike for freedom. The rank and file knew nothing of this purpose. Only their leaders knew. Each had sworn to lay their souls and bodies a free offering on their country’s altar and to obey their commander’s word as the law of God.

It was two years from the beginning before Virginia ventured to meet her lover in a deep mountain gorge of the inner Sierras.

Their embrace was long and silent. They spoke at last in low, half-articulate sounds that only love could hear and know.

When the first wave of emotion had spent itself, she asked him eagerly:

“Your last invention--the aerial torpedo?”

“A failure like the rest!” he answered sadly. “Great inventions that revolutionize warfare have all required years to perfect--the iron-clad a generation, the submarine ten years, the aeroplane ten years. They required the genius of hundreds in their experiments and the lives of thousands. The hope of miraculous inventions in an hour of crisis is only the vain dream of the novelist. We have ceased to hope for such deliverance. We are training men to master the already perfected mechanism of the submarine--thousands of them. Lake, the inventor, is an admiral. We have a model at work six thousand feet above the sea. I command the Eagle’s Nest, the camp on a great mountain plateau where we are training thousands of aviators. On another peak among the stars we are teaching men to use the range finders and swing big guns to strike a target at twelve miles. Most important of all we are teaching each and every man how to use cold steel at close range--”

“You fully accept my scheme then?” she interrupted.

“As an inspiration of God! The staff has tested it with a hundred hostile suppositions. It is sure to win if you can train a million girls to co-operate with us in the uprising, win to our cause one man in ten in the Imperial Army, and wield a knife with deadly power. The only question is, can you get those girls?”

“I have them already--”

“A million?”

“And more--I had to stop. I could have sworn another million.”

“We will be ready in three months--”

“You can have four--”

“You have fixed the date?”

“Yes. There can be but one--the Emperor’s birthday--”

Vassar clasped Virginia in his arms.

“Dearest--you’re inspired--I swear it!”

“I have positive assurance,” she went on eagerly, “that our girls have already won more than two hundred thousand soldiers of the enemy who will join us the night we strike. Every officer will be in his cups that night. A Belshazzar’s feast, with Waldron as their toastmaster!”

“And not merely in New York--“ he added, “but in every city in America--on every ship--in every aviation hangar and on board every submarine--once their guns are in our hands--!”

“We’ll take them--never fear--“ she cried.

“If we can only get our hands on half their rifles, half their machine guns, half the ships and half the aircraft we’ll win! The fiends of hell never fought as we shall fight! We’ll get them too--“ he stopped overwhelmed with emotion. “It’s the knife at close quarters in the dark, man to man, muscle and steel, and dauntless hearts, that will turn the trick. How little we’ve traveled after all our boasted science! All your girls will have to do is to get them drunk that night, rally your converts, strike down the outer guards--smuggle in a few guns and we’ll do the rest.

“We’ll give your men more than half their rifles,” Virginia promised. “And what’s more we will put their trained artillerymen, aviators and submarine experts out of commission to a man that night. We will detail two girls for each of these men--there’ll be no blunder--”

“There’s just one thing I don’t like--“ he broke in with clenched fists.

“Yes, I know, my lover!” she smiled.

“You’ve got to make love to those brutes, flatter and cajole them for weeks. You are risking what we hold more precious than life--”

“We have sworn to give as God has given us--all--”

“I don’t like it--I don’t like it!” he protested bitterly.

She slipped her arms about his neck. Her eyes sought his with yearning in their depths.

“Never speak or think that thought of me again, my own,” she whispered. “I, too, know how to die as well as you. This is the third and last lesson we shall teach the Daughters of Jael before the Day dawns! Those who give their honor will scorn the cheaper gift of life. The new sun will rise on a clean and glorious womanhood, redeemed by sorrow and humbled by a divine passion for country we could learn in no other school but this!”

She held him at arm’s length and slowly slipped her hands from his and waved him back.

“No more--until the Day dawns!”

“Until the Day dawns, my love!” he breathed tenderly.

She leaped on her pony and galloped into the solemn night alone--to deliver her orders to the Daughters of Jael for their third and final lesson.