t conversation.

"Our grandchildren," said Arthur, "will have to answer for that little
affair and fight it out some day or other."

"Not our grandchildren, but we ourselves," I answered, not knowing in
the least why I said it.

"We ourselves?" said Wilcox, laughing at me, "not much; look at me, look
at yourself, look at our people, and then look at those dwarfs."

"The Russians said the same thing: Look at the dwarfs."

They all laughed at me and presently I joined in the laugh, but I could
not forget the Irishman as he lay in the grip of the Jap. And quite
suddenly I remembered something which I had almost forgotten. It
happened at Heidelberg, during my student days in Germany; a professor
was telling us how, after the inglorious retreat of the Prussian army
from Valmy, the officers, with young Goethe in their midst, were sitting
round the camp fires discussing the reasons for the defeat. When they
asked Goethe what he thought about it, he answered, as though gifted
with second sight: "At this spot and at this moment a new epoch in the
world's history will begin, and you will all be able to say that you
were present." And in imagination I could see the red glow of the
bivouac fires and the officers of Frederick the Great's famous army, who
could not understand how anyone could have fled before the ragged
recruits of the Revolution. And near them I saw a man of higher caliber
standing on tiptoe to look through the dark curtain into the future.

At the time I soon forgot all these things; I forgot the apparently
insignificant street affray and the icy breath of premonition which
swept over me then, and not until the disaster had occurred did it again
enter my mind. But then when the swords were clashing I realized, for
the first time, that all the incidents we had observed on the dusty
highway of History, and passed by with indifference, had been sure signs
of the coming catastrophe.

PARABELLUM

BANZAI!

_Chapter I_

IN MANILA

"For God's sake, do leave me in peace with your damned yellow monkeys!"
cried Colonel Webster, banging his fist on the table so hard that the
whisky and soda glasses jumped up in a fright, then came down again
irritably and wagged their heads disapprovingly, so that the
amber-colored fluid spilled over the edge and lay on the table in little
pearly puddles.

"As you like, colonel. I shall give up arguing with you," returned
Lieutenant Commander Harryman curtly. "You