But the flashing of the sword, the good people of San Francisco, gathered on her hills, never saw.  Mysterious, invisible, it cleaved the air and smote the mightiest blows of combat the world had ever witnessed.  The good people of San Francisco saw little and understood less.  They saw only a million and a half tons of brine-cleaving, thunder-flinging fabrics hurled skyward and smashed back in ruin to sink into the sea.  It was all over in five minutes.  Remained upon the wide expanse of sea only the Energon, rolling white and toylike on the bar.

Goliah spoke to the Mikado and the Elder Statesmen.  It was only an ordinary cable message, despatched from San Francisco by the captain of the Energon, but it was of sufficient moment to cause the immediate withdrawal of Japan from the Philippines and of her surviving fleets from the sea.  Japan the sceptical was converted.  She had felt the weight of Goliah’s arm.  And meekly she obeyed when Goliah commanded her to dismantle her war vessels and to turn the metal into useful appliances for the arts of peace.  In all the ports, navy-yards, machine-shops, and foundries of Japan tens of thousands of brown-skinned artisans converted the war-monsters into myriads of useful things, such as ploughshares (Goliah insisted on ploughshares), gasolene engines, bridge-trusses, telephone and telegraph wires, steel rails, locomotives, and rolling stock for railways.  It was a world-penance for a world to see, and paltry indeed it made appear that earlier penance, barefooted in the snow, of an emperor to a pope for daring to squabble over temporal power.

Goliah’s next summons was to the ten leading scientists of the United States.  This time there was no hesitancy in obeying.  The savants were ludicrously prompt, some of them waiting in San Francisco for weeks so as not to miss the scheduled sailing-date.  They departed on the Energon on June 15; and while they were on the sea, on the way to Palgrave Island, Goliah performed another spectacular feat.  Germany and France were preparing to fly at each other’s throats.  Goliah commanded peace.  They ignored the command, tacitly agreeing to fight it out on land where it seemed safer for the belligerently inclined.  Goliah set the date of June 19 for the cessation of hostile preparations.  Both countries mobilized their armies on June 18, and hurled them at the common frontier.  And on June 19, Goliah struck.  All generals, war-secretaries, and jingo-leaders in the two countries died on that day; and that day two vast armies, undirected, like strayed sheep, walked over each other’s frontiers and fraternized.  But the great German war lord had escaped—­it was learned, afterward, by hiding in the huge safe where were stored the secret archives of his empire.  And when he emerged he was a very penitent war lord, and like the Mikado of Japan he was set to work beating his sword-blades into ploughshares and pruning-hooks.

But in the escape of the German Emperor was discovered a great significance.  The scientists of the world plucked up courage, got back their nerve.  One thing was conclusively evident—­Goliah’s power was not magic.  Law still reigned in the universe.  Goliah’s power had limitations, else had the German Emperor not escaped by secretly hiding in a steel safe.  Many learned articles on the subject appeared in the magazines.