“There lies our future Empire,” he said solemnly and impressively.

“Explain it to me,” Dominey begged.

“Broadly speaking, everything between those two lines belongs to the new German Empire.  Poland, Courland, Lithuania, and the Ukraine will possess a certain degree of autonomous government, which will practically amount to nothing.  Asia is there at our feet.  No longer will Great Britain control the supplies of the world.  Raw materials of every description will be ours.  Leather, tallow, wheat, oil, fats, timber—­they are all there for us to draw upon.  And for wealth—­India and China!  What more could you have, my friend?”

“You take my breath away.  But what about Austria?”

Seaman’s grin was almost sardonic.

“Austria,” he said, “must already feel her doom creeping upon her.  There is no room in middle Europe for two empires, and the House of Hapsburg must fall before the House of Hohenzollern.  Austria, body and soul, must become part of the German Empire.  Then further down, mark you.  Roumania must become a vassal state or be conquered.  Bulgaria is already ours.  Turkey, with Constantinople, is pledged.  Greece will either join us or be wiped out.  Servia will be blotted from the map; probably also Montenegro.  These countries which are painted in fainter red, like Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece, become vassal states, to be absorbed one by one as opportunity presents itself.”

Dominey’s finger strayed northward.

“Belgium,” he observed, “has disappeared.”

“Belgium we shall occupy and enslave,” Seaman replied.  “Our line of advance into France lies that way, and we need her ports to dominate the Thames.  Holland and the Scandinavian countries, as you observe are left in the lighter shade of red.  If an opportunity occurs, Holland and Denmark may be incited to take the field against us.  If they do so, it means absorption.  If they remain, as they probably will, scared neutrals, they will none the less be our vassal states when the last gun has been fired.”

“And Norway and Sweden?”

Seaman looked down at the map and smiled.

“Look at them,” he said.  “They lie at our mercy.  Norway has her western seaboard, and there might always be the question of British aid so far as she is concerned.  But Sweden is ours, body and soul.  More than any other of these vassal states, it is our master’s plan to bring her into complete subjection.  We need her lusty manhood, the finest cannon food in the world, for later wars, if indeed such a thing should be.  She has timber and minerals which we also need.  But there—­it is enough.  First of all men in this country, my friend, you Von Ragastein, have gazed upon this picture of the future.”

“This is marvellously conceived,” Dominey muttered, “but what of Russian with her millions?  How is it that we propose, notwithstanding her countless millions of men, to help ourselves to her richest provinces, to drive a way through the heart of her empire?”