“Nobody saw where he went.  I all but killed myself for an hour trying to find him, but it was of no use.  And with that, as I sat at my lunch, too feverish and stirred to eat food, demanding over and over what he meant, what the ‘turn’ was which I was to do, why a Cochrane should have a chance to save England—­with that, suddenly I knew.”

General Cochrane halted again, and again he gazed down the little river, the river of England, the river which he, more than any other, had kept for English folk and their peaceful play-times.  I knew I must not hurry him; I waited.

“The thing came to me like lightning,” he went on, “and I had only to go from one simple step to another; it seemed all thought 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 reluctantly, but it was a bit too shocking.