ught out for me. It
was something, don't you see, which I'd known all my lifetime, but
hadn't once thought of since the war began. I went direct to my bankers
and got a box out of the safe and fetched it home in a cab. There I
opened it and took out papers and went over them.... This part of the
tale is mostly in print," General Cochrane interrupted himself. "Have
you read it? I don't want to bore you with repetitions."

I answered hurriedly, trembling for fear I might say the wrong thing:
"I've read what's in print, but your telling it puts it in another
world. Please go on. Please don't shorten anything."

The shadow of a smile played. "I rather like telling you a story, d'you
know," he spoke, half absent-mindedly--his real thoughts were with that
huge past. He swept back to it. "You know, of course, about Dundonald's
Destroyer--the invention of my great-grandfather's kinsman, Thomas
Cochrane, tenth Earl of Dundonald? He was a good bit of an old chap in
various ways. He did things to the French fleet that put him as a naval
officer in the class with Nelson and Drake. But he's remembered in
history by his invention. It was a secret, of course, one of the puzzles
of the time and of years after, up to 1917. It was known there was
something. He offered it to the government in 1811, and the government
appointed a committee to examine into it. The chairman was the Duke of
York, commander-in-chief of the army, said to be the ablest
administrator of military affairs of that time. Also there were Admirals
Lord Keith and Exmouth and the Congreve brothers of the ordnance
department. A more competent committee of five could not have been
gathered in the world. This board would not recommend the adoption of
the scheme. Why? They reported that there was no question that the
invention would do all which Dundonald claimed, but it was so
unspeakably dreadful as to be impossible for civilized men.

"There was not a shadow of doubt, the committee reported, that
Dundonald's device would not merely defeat but annihilate and sweep out
of existence any hostile force, whole armies and navies. 'No power on
earth could stand against it,' said the old fellow, and the five experts
backed him up. But they considered that the devastation would be inhuman
beyond permissible warfare. Not war, annihilation. In fact, they shelved
it because it was too efficient. There was great need of means for
fighting Napoleon just then, so they gave it up reluct